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SIR WILLIAM BUTLER

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Photogravure by Annan iSono. Glasgow

SIR WILLIAM BUTLER

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BY

LIEUT. -GENERAL THE RT. HON,

SIR W. F. BUTLER

G. G. B.

WITH FOUR PORTRAITS IN PHOTOGRAVURE

LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD.

10 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE W.C. ^

^ 1911

CONTENTS

PAGE

Foreword .......... xi

CHAPTER I

Earliest Recollections. The Irish Famine. ' Butler's Country.'

School. Gazetted Ensign to the 69th Regiment .... 1

CHAPTER II

Old soldiers and young. Orders for India. A four months' voyage.

Burmah ........... 15

CHAPTER III

From Rangoon to Madras. A hurricane at sea. The Nilgherry
Mountains. The Carnatic Plain. The lives and thoughts of
Eastern peoples. Leave spent on the western coast ... 34

CHAPTER IV

Down to Cape Comorin, and back to Madras. The scene of a bygone

massacre. Starting for England. St. Helena .... 52

CHAPTER V

Aldershot. Visit to the Belgian battlefields. Afterthoughts on

Waterloo 68

CHAPTER VI

The Channel Isles. Victor Hugo. The Curragh. To Canada. Leave

in the West. Bufialo hunt ....... 83

CHAPTER VII

A new conception of life. In charge of the ' Look Outs.' Montreal
and Quebec. Home. Father's death. A hopeless outlook in
the Army .......... 98

ft2

vi SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER VIII

PAGE

The Red River Expedition. Under Colonel Wolseley. Fenians.
The purchase system. No step after twelve years' service. Paris.
The end of the Commune . . . . . . . .112

CHAPTER IX

Paris in her agony. Writing The Cheat Lone Land. On half-pay.
Bound for the Saskatchewan. The lonely journey. Home.
Ashanti. With Sir Garnet Wolseley again . . . .130

CHAPTER X

West Coast of Africa. ' The Wolseley Gang.' Beating up the natives.

Recalcitrant kings. Fever. The forest. Invading Ashanti . 147

CHAPTER XI

An excuse for the craven native. End of the Expedition. Near'death
from fever. Queen Victoria's visit to Netley. Companion of the
Bath. Start for Natal. With Sir Garnet Wolseley again. Pro-
tector of Indian immigrants. The Tugela. Through the Orange
Free State 164

CHAPTER XII

The state of South Africa in 1875. On the Staff at the War Office.
MiUtary administration. First meeting with Gordon. Marriage.
War in Eastern Europe. Annexation of the Transvaal. Visit to
Cyprus. The Zulu War. Isandula. Departure for South Africa 183

CHAPTER XIII

Assistant Adjutant-General in Natal. Death of the Prince Imperial.
Advance into Zululand. Ulundi. Transports for England. Im-
prisonment of Cetewayo. St. Helena again . . . .198

CHAPTER XIV

War in South Africa. Majuba. Adjutant-General in the Western
District. The Egyptian question. Bombardment of Alexandria.
Arabi. Service in Egypt. On Sir Garnet Wolseley's Staff. EI
Magfar. Tel-el-Mahouta. Kassassin. The night march. Tel-
el-Kebir 216

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER XV

PAGE

Cairo. The fate of Arabi in the balance. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Leaving

Egypt. To the Saskatchewan again. The Red Man . . . 238

CHAPTER XVI

The Hudson Bay forts. Winnipeg. Back to London. Trouble on
the Upper Nile. Revolt of the Mahdi. Destruction of the forces
of Hicks Pasha and Baker Pasha. General Gordon sent to the
Soudan. Gordon and the garrisons in danger. Delay and vacilla-
tion at home. Bmldingof Nile ' whalers.' Ascent of the Nile . 26(J

CHAPTER XVII

Delays on the Nile. Success of the ' whalers.' Letters. Korti. The
Desert column. Fall of Khartoum. The River column. Kir-
bekan. News of Gordon's death ...... 281

CHAPTER XVIII
Meroe. Wady Haifa. Kosheh. Advance of the Dervishes. Ginniss 307

CHAPTER XIX

«

Back to Wady Haifa. Letters. Sickness among the troops. Leav-
ing the Soudan. Assouan. Home on sick leave. Half-pay in
Brittanj'. K.C.B 329

CHAPTER XX

In Delgany, Ireland. Parnell. Army Ordnance Enquiry : Report. *
Proposed fortifications for London. Command at Alexandria.
Death of Khedive Tewfik. Palestine. . . . . .351

CHAPTER XXI

End of Alexandria command. Aldershot. The Jameson Raid. Com-
mand of the South-Eastern District, Dover. Offer of command at
the Cape. Arrival in South Africa, Acting High Commissioner.
Initial difficulties. Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Grahamstown. ' Cape
Boys.' The ' Edgar Case ' 376

t

viii SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER XXII

PAGE

The South African League. The true life of the land. Apparent
public opinion. Warnings to the Government of real position.
Return of Sir Alfred Milner. Tour of inspection. Scheme of
defence. Uncertainty at Headquarters in London. Interviews
and correspondence with the High Commissioner. Absence of
m instructions from England ....... 404

CHAPTER XXIII

The Bloemfontein Conference. Two interesting letters. Further
interviews and correspondence. Proposed raid from Tuli. De-
spatch of 22nd June to the Secretary of State. Some cablegrams
from and to the War Office. Increased difficulty of the position.
Resignation of the Command. Departure from South Africa . 431

Afterword .......... 456

Index .....'...... 461

ILLUSTRATIONS

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR W. F. BUTLER, K.C.B. Frontispiece

From a sketch by Lady Butleb, made at the Cape in Juue
1899.

ENSIGN W. F. BUTLER Facing page 14

At the age of twenty, on joining the Service in 1858.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL W. F. BUTLER, C.B. . „ 250

Taken in 1883 as Queen's A.D.C.

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. F. BUTLER, K.C.B. . „ 392

Taken in 1898, commanding the South-Eastern Distinct.

MAPS—

Map of the West Coast of Africa .... .. 150

Map of the Nile „ 240

•

i '

FOREWORD

My father began this Autobiography in March 1909, and
worked leisurely at it up to within a few days of his un-
expected death on 7th June 1910.

The manuscript breaks off in the middle of the last chapter,
which deals with the end of his command in South Africa ;
and though, on his deathbed, he entrusted the task of com-
pleting this chapter to me, I was unable to learn his wishes
as to the sources of information among his papers to which I
should apply. On finding the detailed ' Narrative of Events,'
which he wrote shortly after his return from the Cape, I thought
I could not do better than adhere solely to this record.

The reader will understand the onerous nature of my task,
for, while keeping closely to the 'Narrative,' I have realised the
necessity for abbreviation and condensation, without omitting
what appeared to be essentials. Whether my father would
have wished for more or for fewer omissions, I cannot say ;
but I have inclined towards few, for fear of losing anything
he would have wished retained.

EILEEN BUTLER.

• •

SIR WILLIAM BUTLER

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I

Earliest recollections. The Irish famine. ' Butler's country.'
School. Gazetted ensign to the 69th Regiment.

Had it been possible for any one child to tell us exactly what
he saw when he first opened his eyes, that earliest impression
of the world would probably have proved the most interesting
brain-picture ever given by an individual to the general public.
Nothing like it could ever have been told by him in later life.

' We awake at our birth,' somebody says, ' staring at a
very funny place. After serious examination of it we receive
two fairly definite impressions — delight and fear." He puts the
sensation of delight first, that of fear second. That is right ;
but do they keep these places always ? I think the verdict of
humanity would be that Life was a longer or shorter process of
the change of place between these two predominant powers.

Our delight at the first sight of earth we are able to recall
only dimly in after time. The fear is bound to grow. Once
at St. Helena there came a huge avalanche of rock, loosened
from an overhanging mountain, in the dead of night, crashing
down upon the poor straggling smgle street of Jamestown.
It crushed to powder two houses, killing instantly sixteen men
and women. When daylight came, the frightened neighbours,
climbing through the rums, found a three-months-old baby
lying on its back close by the mountain boulder, alive, kicking
and crowing — every other thing was dead. To the baby the
rock was only a new possession. That is the whole point.

Anyway, our child-world was a happy one. Everything was
ours — the green foreground where the spotted pet rabbits
nibbled and nuzzled together ; beyond these, long glimpses of
green grass seen between lime and beech trees ; then a glisten-

A •

2 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

ing river, with shimmering shallows and bending sallows ;
beyond that, more green fields ; and then a long blue mountain
range, which grew bolder and loftier as it stretched westward,
where it ended in two peaked summits, behind which the sun
went down only to come up again next morning at the east
end of the range — our sole unquestioned property still. Such
are my earliest recollections of the home of ' the little sallow '
— Bally slat een, where I first saw the light on the 31st of
October 1838, the seventh child of Richard and Ellen Butler.
The world, as the young child saw it, was a very different
place from the world which the older child was to hear and
realise a few years later. The early "forties gave no warning
word of what the decade would do in Ireland before it closed.
I was about eight years old when the crash came. The country
about where we lived in Tipperary was swarming with people.
Along the road were cabins or little thatched mud-cottages at
every hundred or hundred and fifty paces. I had been taken
at the age of four years to live with a maternal aunt and uncle
at Artane, near Dublin, a charming spot three miles from the
city ; and in this second home, with the kindest relations
that child could have, I spent the years from 1842 to 1846.
These years are, of course, only a bright hour in memory now,
but one or two events stand out in clearest light. I stiU
retain the recollection of being taken into a large building,
the name of which I knew only in after years. Richmond
Penitentiary it was caUed. We passed through big gates and
doors, and came out mto a garden which had a very high wall
around it. Following a walk to a spot where another walk
crossed ours, we found a group of strange men, with one very
big burly man among them. I remember the scene particu-
larly, for the reason that there were a good many apple-trees
growing on either side of the walks, and the fruit was suffi-
ciently large upon them to rivet my attention while the older
members of the party were conversing with the burly man
and his companions. All at once the big figure moved forward,
and, taking me in his arms, lifted me above his head, while he
shouted in a great strong voice, ' Hurrah for Tipperary ! ' The
big man was Daniel O'Connell, and the time must have been
in the June of 1844 ; for he was in Richmond Prison from May
to September of that year.

' THE BLACK FORTY-SEVEN ' 3

Early in 1846 I was taken from these loving relations at
Artane back to the Tipperary home. It was a two days' coach
journey, of which I remember Httle beyond the grief of the
first day at parting from these beloved ones ; and the grey
monotony of the second day passing slowly through long
stretches of bog until at last, as evening was closing, the great
towers and battlements of the Rock of Cashel rose before the
post-chaise in the gloaming ; but another weary hour had to
pass before home was reached. When we were quite near
home, my sister, who knew the road thoroughly, began to name
the persons whose cottages we should have to pass before our
gate was reached. She repeated about a dozen names, I being
terribly tired, the list gave me the idea that we had still a long
road to travel, and I heard it with dismay ; but my alarm was
needless, the distance was only a few hundred yards. I passed
along that same road a few days ago : not one house, not even
the site of a house, can now be discerned there. In that
month of March 1846 the famine which was to sweep four
millions of Irish peasants out of Ireland was about to begin
its worst slaughter. The following winter brought ' the black
forty-seven.' It was a terrible time. Everywhere the unfor-
tunate people sickened, died, or fled. There was no prepara-
tion, no warning ; the blow fell straight. The halting and
creaking machinery of the State could not cope with this
sudden onslaught. A second or third rate despot could have
at least parried the blow ; but a constitutional government
face to face with a sudden crisis is as helpless as a stranded
whale m an ebb-tide.

My father and the better-endowed neighbours flung them-
selves bravely against the advancing plagues of famine and
fever. Their purses were none too flush ; but they gave
liberally. They bought meal in the nearest town where it
could be got, carried it fourteen miles by cart, and, under
escort of pohce, gave it to the famishing people. I have some
of the old books still which hold the record and keep the
accounts of these weekly distributions. They are pitiful reading.
They range from early February to the end of July 1847. The
Uttle entries opposite the names of rehef recipients are more
striking in their briefness than elaborate descriptions of misery
could be. Here are some of them.

4 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

* Kitty Marony and three children. Her husband has gone
from her and she doesn't know where he went."

' The widow and five children, two and a half stone

weekly.'

* Nicholas Murphy and four children ; has an old cow/
' Edward Mockler of " the Idiot " is receiving.'

' The cost of the Indian meal varies between 1/4 and 1/10
the stone.'

Sometimes a name disappears from the list, and the entry
column knows it no more.

The records end in July 1847, perhaps because the Govern-
ment machinery had then got into working order, or because
the earth had begun to yield some stray bits of nutriment
again.

In September 1847, things looking somewhat brighter I
suppose, I was sent with two older brothers to a school in the
King's County called Tullabeg. This estabhshment was con-
ducted by the Jesuit Fathers. It was situated m the midst of
a great region of bog-land, as the name implies — Tullabeg, the
little bog — in contradistinction, I suppose, to the great many big
bogs which surrounded it. My recollections of this school are
not happy ones. I was nine years old, and thin and delicate ;
and the cold of the winter, in that elevated marsh-land which
lies to the north of the Slieve Bloom Hills and almost in the
centre of the island, seemed to strike into the heart and soul
of a frame such as mine. All the more did the climatic
conditions tell against a small boy because the majority
of the other boys were strong. Many of them were rough,
and, it is needless to say, were as merciless to their smaller
and weaker fry as though the school had been of pilchards.
My mother's death in the summer of 1849 caused us
to be taken from school. Things had grown worse over
the land. If actual famine had lessened, its after effects
had spread and deepened. Sickness of many kinds prevailed
everywhere, and contagion carried death into homes of rich
and poor alike. The winter of 1848-49 dwells in my memory
as one long night of sorrow. I was only ten years old ;
two children still younger than I was were both stricken with
the long wasting fever which was ravaging the country. It
was at this time that my mind began to take impressions

THE OLD HOME 5

which time has not been able to impair, and to form thoughts
which experience of hfe has only tended to deepen.

In what manner my father was able to weather the storm
which had so suddenly broken, in which so many stronger craft
had gone down, I do not know, but he was a brave man. The
strange part of it was that it was all new work to him. He had
not fought these foes before, and he was at this time not far
off his sixtieth year. This is where religion comes in. Gradu-
ally things grew better. Youth soon rallied ; and even when
things were at their worst, we youngsters had the fields, the
river, and the mountain still with us — the country of which
Spenser had said that it was ' the richest Champain that may
else be rid ' ; and the mountain that he speaks of as ' the
best and fairest hill that was in all this Holy Island's heights,"
Nor had he forgotten the river : he calls it ' the gentle Shure.'
But that was saying little : gentle it was, no doubt ; but many
things besides — ^grass-banked, wiUowj', winding, pebbly, with
deep limpid pools and silvery shallows — ' the fishful Swire/
another old writer caUs it. Our old home lay at the other
side of the river, and its name told the sylvan story of the
beautiful stream, ' the town-land of the winding river ' —
Ballycarron. My father had been bom there, as had some
eight or nine generations of our family, since the time Black
Tom of Carrick^ had settled his brothers and a lot of his followers
west of the Suir after the destruction of the Desmonds in
1584.

The family traditions were almost as extensive as the family
purse was limited. I think that there was a somewhat similar
antithesis of thought with us between purse and pride, not
uncommon in cases of the kind — as though nature had put
into old blood some antitoxin to neutralise the effect of the
bacteria of poverty*. Be that as it may, the river, the moun-
tains, and the family history were aU interwoven together.

The old peasants stiU called the great plain that stretched
from Slieve-na-Man to the Galtees, ' Butler's country.' The
name alone survived. The possession had long since shrunken
to narrow limits. CromweU had ridden over it, and WiUiam
had crossed it agam forty years later, harrowing where the
other had ploughed. A century of penal law had bitten out

^ Thomas Butler, tenth Earl of Ormond.

6 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

many a broad acre from it as the devil was said to have bitten
out the big gap in the ' Devil's Bit ' Mountain, that bounded our
range of sight to the north as the Galtees stopped it to the
south. What ups and downs of life had all these ups and
downs of land surface seen ! Some very old men had survived
the famine and fever years, and they were always ready to
spin a story of ' the good old times ' for us young people.

Cromwell's war was not such a far-away event in 1850 to
men or women who could reckon eighty or ninety years of
existence. They had heard, as children, old men and women
of fourscore years telling their tales by the winter's fireside —
1850, 1770, 1700, 1630— when Oliver Cromwell was farming and
brewing in Huntingdon. A hears a story from B who had
heard from C what D was told ten years before the time when
forty of the Butlers feU at Kilrush fighting under Mountgarret
in Wexford — that time when a riderless horse belonging to one
of the forty, with broken bridle and saddle topsy-turvy, came
galloping into the castle ' bawn ' on Kilmoyler HiU, a short
mile across the fields to the south of our river. The church-
yard lore, too, seemed to have survived the wreck of Ufe and
estate longer than other traditions. Our famUy burial-place
was by the old ruined church of Killardrigh, half a mile beyond
the hill of Kilmoyler. A fragment of an old headstone, lying
among debris near the east window of the Uttle ruin, said that
in this place several generations of the Butlers of Kilmoyler,
descendants of the ninth Earl of Ormond, were interred.
Before KiUardrigh, the old people said we had buried in Lough
Kent, four miles to the east ; and before that at Clerihan,
about the same distance to the south-east. This showed the
steps which the course of incessant tribal fighting between the
Butlers and Desmonds had caused the family outposts to
foUow, as the Desmonds were being slowly pushed back towards
the west. If Desmond had ' wine from the royal Pope ' and
guns from the King of Spain, ' Black Tom,' in his great house
at Carrick, had had many a boat-load of arms, powder, and
bullets from his ' cousin ' the Queen of England. Her likeness
and royal cipher are still to be seen in Italian stucco work in
a dozen medallions round the ruined banqueting-hall of the
castle at Carrick.

In the old times neither chief nor clansman went far to marry

FATHER'S EARLY DAYS 7

or to bury. Wherever you jfind one of those lonely, lofty,
square stone towers, called ' castles ' in Ireland, you will also
find, close by, the ruined church, with mounds and mouldering
headstones around it — MuUaghnoney, Woodenstown, Kilna-
cask. Cromwell's soldiers smashed them all to bits, but the
dead steal back to the ruined churches still.

Looking back now at the early days of my boyhood, I often
think with keen regret of all the opportunities lost for ever
of hearing more and still more of what those grand old people
had heard or read of in their day. My father had been edu-
cated at Ulverston in Lancashire, at a school kept by Bishop
Everard, a refugee from France in the time of the Revolution.
This remarkable ecclesiastic, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel,
had, with the aid of some of the old highest Catholic families,
started a private school in the little Lancashire village in the
last decade of the eighteenth century. We were related
through marriage with the family of Everard, and thus had
arisen the connection between teacher and student at Ulver-
ston. What mines of historic interest here lay entombed !
An Irish-French bishop getting away from the south of France
before Napoleon had taken Toulon. My father used to tell
us of dehghtful evenings spent at the house of a Catholic lady
who had hved at Ulverston at this time — Barbara, Lady
Mostyn. She had early separated from her husband, Sir Piers
Mostyn, for some incompatibihties, one of which I remem-
ber. Sir Piers was sitting late with his foxhunting friends one
night shortly after the marriage. My lady was in her own
apartments. It was proposed that she should be ' blooded ' —
this ceremony consisted in drinking a cup of claret in which
the brush of the fox last killed was put. My lady was sent
for. Seated at the table, the rite was explained to her, and
the noxious draught placed before her. She refused to drink

it. ' By G , madam,' thundered Sir Piers, ' you will have

to drink it ; you must be " blooded." ' Lady Mostyn drank
the cup, and left the castle, to which she never returned.

Another Ulverston story I also remember. One of the young
men at the school (they were aU of university age) came in
from the garden one evening showing signs of great mental
distress. A strange form, he said, had appeared to him on a
garden walk. It tried to utter some words : the light was

8 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

good, he could not have been deceived. Next day he adhered
to his sto^3^ He was advised to go back again to the spot.
He did so. The form again appeared at the same place. It
spoke. It was the form of a relation who was abroad in some
distant place. A ship had gone down at sea ; he (the relation)
had been lost. There was a sum of money owing to some
person : the form had come to ask that this money might be
paid ; that was all. Months later came the news of shipwreck.

My father had lived too in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte,
and of that still more successful warrior, King George the
Fourth, whose charge at Waterloo, when Prince Regent, as is
well known, had smashed the French army to pieces. Of this
last hero he (my father) had seen something : he saw the First
Gentleman of Europe standing up in his carriage, either in
College Green or at the Curragh — a cap of green velvet with a
long gold tassel on his rojaA head, and a tumbler of hot whisky
punch in his roj^al hand, pledging the health of his true and
loving Irish subjects with whom he had determined to spend
the remaining days of his Ufe. I will not here indulge in anj^
speculations as to what the course of history might have been
had this royal intention been carried out.

I was never told, nor do I know to this day, how it had
happened that our family had been able to hold on to Bally-
carron through all the vicissitudes of the Penal times. So
long as a Stuart was on the throne they had friends of some
sort at Court ; but after the accession of the House of Hanover
the family anxieties must have been considerable. Among the
fourteen main clauses of confiscation and persecution in the
penal code, there were at least three which must have made
the life of a Catholic gentleman in the eighteenth century a
very doubtful blessing, and a most precarious possession.

11. Any Protestant seeing a Catholic tenant at will on a
farm, which in his opinion yielded one-third more than the
annual rent, might enter on that farm, and by simply swearing
to the fact, take possession of it.

14. Any Catholic gentleman's child who became a Protestant
could at once take possession of and assume title to his father's
property.

7. Any two justices of the peace could caU any man over
sixteen years of age before them, and if he refused to abjure

CROMWELLIAN ANECDOTE 9

the Catholic religion, they could bestow his property on the
Protestant next of kin.

With provisions of spoliation such as these, and there were
many more of similar impact, making, every morning, poverty
a ' possible contingency ' before evening, the lives of some of
my progenitors in Ballycarron must have been somewhat
Damoclesian ; but Nature has many ways of correcting the
errors of the law-maker, and no doubt she used them at this
period along the winding river. The habit of seeking wives
near at hand had caused a very numerous cousinship to spring
up in the valley of the Suir. One mile down the river there
resided, sometime about the year 1750, a certain ' Mosh ' or
Tom Butler, of desperate fighting tenacity. Tradition said
that he was always ready to fight anybod}^ ; but the descendant
of a Cromwellian settler had ever first claim on him, and the
great duel between him and one Sadler at a place called Ock-
na-Gore (the ford of the goat), close by where I am now writing,
was a favourite subject for spirited recital by elderly black-
smith folk and old fishermen along the river when I was a
boy. Large crowds had assembled to see the fight. The
point of the story was that Sadler was reputed to wear under
his clothes a suit of chain mail, impervious to the bullet of that
time. In loading the pistols, ' Mosh's ' second contrived to
insert a silver coin as the wad between the powder and the
bullet. The word was given ; the combatants fired. Sadler
was seen to wince ; * Mosh ' was untouched : the seconds
declared themselves satisfied. Both combatants mounted
their horses to return to their respective homes, but when
Sadler reached the ford at the little stream of the Fidogtha,
and his horse bent its head to drink, somebody observed blood
running down the leg of Sadler and into his boot. Examina-
tion could no longer be deferred ; but while preparations were
being made for it the Cromwellian champion fell from his horse,
and then there was found outside his net of steel a flattened
bullet, and inside the mailed shirt a small incised wound,
through which the silver coin had found its way into a vital
spot. The old blacksmith, who used to love to relate this
story and many others of a similar kind, was a philosopher of
no mean contemplative power ; and often when pursuing some
train of thought he would sum up the lost Cause by carrying

10 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

it into the other world, and he would suddenly ask me such
a question as, * Wliere 's Cromwell now ? ' or, ' Where 's
Ireton to-day ? ' I was always careful not to anticipate the
supreme point by giving direct answer to his question ; but
I would just say, ' Where ? ' Then his eyes would flash like
the sparks from his own anvil. ' I '11 tell ye,' he would cry.
' He 's where he could kindle his pipe with his elbow/ Then
there was nothing more to be said.

By means of a cousinship of the kind exemplified by
' Mosh,' and a numerous famUy of the O'Doherty clan, a
member of which had moved into Tipperary from Innistown
towards the close of the seventeenth century (whose son
married a Butler of Ballycarron early in the eighteenth
century), the eleven hundred acres that lay within the town-
lands of the winding river had remained tolerably secure
throughout three hundred years of penal confiscation.

It was about 1778 that Catholics were given the legal right
to hold estates. Through the same relaxation of the penal
codes during the American War a large number of these fighting
cousins found their way into the army.

Some half-dozen of those family feudatories appear in the
Army List of the end of the eighteenth century — one of them
Colonel Richard O'Dogherty in the 69th Regiment of Foot,
which regiment he saved from capture by the French in 1795.
A nephew of this man, another Richard, got a commission
about ten years later ; but his name appears as * Doherty ' —
the ' 0' ' and the ' g ' omitted. What 's in a name ? A good
deal, sometimes. Richard had a brother Theobald, who also
got a commission in the 40th Regiment after the rupture of
the Peace of Amiens. Theobald had a wellnigh unequalled
fighting record : he fought at Roleia, Vimeira, Talavera,
Busaco, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthes, and
Toulouse. He only attained the rank of captain ; and he was
compelled to leave the army years later because, under cir-
cumstances of very gross provocation on the score of his
religion, he had challenged a senior officer to fight a duel. The
elder brother, Richard, saw active service only at Guadaloupe
and Martinique : he had those two bars to his war medal
against his younger brother's ten ; but he gave up his faith
as weU as the obnoxious ' 0' ' before his name.

AN EVICTION SCENE 11

Nevertheless, to Richard I owe the fact that X was a soldier,
and that I was posted to the 69th Regiment. I remember
well a visit which I paid to this old kinsman in 1856 or 1857. I
was under inspection. It was an anxious moment. He was
reserved, graciously solemn, and of the type of veteran not
uncommon at that time, but now rarely to be seen — the type
of Gough, Napier, Harry Smith, and a dozen others. He wore
a high black silk stock, behind the stiff shelter of which he
seemed to be able at times to withdraw a good deal of the
lower part of his face in order to regard me to greater advant-
age from the upper portion. ;3ut I anticipate by a few years,
and I must go back to the years succeeding the great famine.

When things became financially safer, we boys were sent
to school again — this time to Diiblin, where, in a large house
in Harcourt Street, once the residence of the notorious John
Scott, first Earl of Clonmel, a Doctor James Quinn had estab-
lished himself as president, assisted by a staff of teachers,
nearly all of whom, like their chief, attained celebrity as bishops
in the colonial ecclesiastical world. I often wondered in after
Ufe how the balance of the account lay, between the loss of
school education caused by those famine years, and the gain
of that other lesson of Ufe — its necessities, its sorrows, its hard
bed-rock facts which that terrible time had implanted in my
mind. In particular there was one scene in the theatre of that
time which did more, I think, to shape the course of thought
than years of study could have done.

One day I was taken by my father to the scene of an eviction
on that road of which I have already spoken as being so full
of the cottages and cabins of the people who were called
cottiers — peasants with three or four acre plots of land. I
have never forgotten the pity of that day. On one side of the
road was a ruined church, the mounds of an old graveyard,
and a few of those trees which never seemed to grow any larger
but remained stunted and ragged deformities, nibbled at by
goats below and warped by storms above, and left to find
voice for the wind as it whistled through them ; on the other
side, and beyond the old church, stood some dozen houses
which were to be pulled down on this day, and their denizens
evicted. At this time the weakening effects of the famine
were still painfully evident in the people, and the spirit of

12 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

opposition which, m after years was to become so strong was
not in being. The sheriff, a strong force of pohce, and above
aU the crowbar brigade — a body composed of the lowest and
most debauched ruffians — were present.

At a signal from the sheriff the work began. The miserable
inmates of the cabins were dragged out upon the road ; the
thatched roofs were torn down and the earthen waUs battered
in by crowbars (practice had made these scoundrels adepts
in their trade) ; the screaming women, the half-naked children,
the paralysed grandmother, and the tottering grandfather were
hauled out. It was a sight I have never forgotten. I was
twelve years old at the time ; but I think if a loaded gun had
been put into my hands I would have fired into that crowd of
villains, as they plied their horrible trade by the ruined church
of Tampul-da-voun (the church of the east window).

Singularly enough, it feU out that, after twenty-five years,
I should meet at Highclere an ex-colonial governor who had
fiUed many positions of trust and authority in his day — Sir
Arthur Kennedy, He had been in early life one of the Famine
Commissioners in the County Clare, and not the least tragi-
cally interesting in the gloomy Blue Book which has collected
the reports of these officers throughout Ireland are the reports
sent in by the then Captain Arthur Kennedy of his experiences
in Western Clare during the famine years.

One day the conversation turned upon Ireland and the Irish
famine. Something was said which caused the old veteran's
face to flush. Turnmg full towards his host he said, ' I can
teU you, my lord, that there were days in that western county
when I came back from some scene of eviction so maddened by
the sights of hunger and misery I had seen in the day's work
that I felt disposed to take the gun from behind my door and
shoot the first landlord I met.' ' Strong words. Sir Arthur,'
was all that the then Colonial Secretary could say. ' Not
stronger, my lord, than were my feelings at that time,' answered
the old soldier.

While I was at school in Dublm the Crimean War began ;
and as the regiments in garrison were all sent to the East,
their departure for the seat of war was an event of great
interest to the schoolboys. Daily we used to accompany some
regiment of horse or foot, cheering them as they marched

SCHOOLDAYS ENDED • 13

through the streets. In one of these mfantry regiments there
marched a subaltern officer who was afterwards destined to
rise to great distinction, and with whose career I was in after
life to have the honour of being associated on many occasions.

In the Story of a Soldier's Life, Lord Wolseley has graphically
described the departure of his regiment, the 90th, from Dublin ;
the scenes of the streets ; and the sympathy of the men and
women with the eight or nine prisoners who were under his
charge as subaltern officer of the day. ' Many purses were
handed to them, and they had a real ovation. I found myself
the centT-e of a crowd that regarded me as a jailer. " Poor
boys ! " I heard on every side, whilst men and women scowled
upon me. They (the prisoners) were assumed to be England's
enemies because thus guarded, so of course they became the
heroes, the dear friends of the Dublin rabble,' For my part,
I have found this feeling of sjTnpathy with prisoners a very
general one tlirough the world, and I do not think that human
nature has any reason to be ashamed of it. Nor is the senti-
ment of sympathy, even when it is misdirected, peculiar to
the people of Ireland. I remember once seeing a naval picket
in Plymouth carrying, or endeavouring to carry, a very
turbulent sailor to his ship. A crowd of women were follo\ving
the cortege, and cries of ' Ah ! don't hurt the pore sailor ! '
were frequent. As the picket passed, I noticed that the
* pore sailor ' had got the petty officer's thumb into his mouth
and was vigorously engaged in the attempt to chew it off ;
but the greatly suffering petty officer had no pity expressed
for him. Here undoubtedly was a case of sympathy so mis-
directed that there was not even a rule of thumb about it.

The Crimean War was over before I left school. A short
interval of aimless expectation followed it. My father was not
keen that his son should enter a profession in which the dis-
advantage of the absence of money could only be overcome
by the surrender of one's rehgion — for that at least was the
lesson which the cases of his relatives in the army had taught
him.

In June 1857 came the news of the Indian Mutiny. I have
already spoken of a visit paid to the old kinsman. Sir Richard
Doherty, and of ' the inspection ' then undergone. It appears
to have been tolerably satisfactory, because not long after-

14 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

wards a letter arrived from him to my father enclosing a
communication from the Military Secretary, nominating me
to a direct commission without purchase. In July 1858 I passed
the qualifying examination at Old Burlington House, and on
the 17th of the following September was gazetted ensign in
the 69th Regiment, the corps which had been saved from
capture by the French through the instrumentality of another
Richard O'Doglierty some sixty-three years earlier. My new
corps was stationed in Burmah, and its depot was at Fermoy,
in the County Cork, some forty miles at the other side of the
Gal tee Mountains. At that time there was no railway to this
military station, so I proceeded thither by a roundabout journey
on a long-car which ran from Kilmallock to it through a wild
hilly country dividing the valley of the Blackwater River
from the waters flowing into the Shannon and the Suir. It
was a dull November evening, the 17th, as we reached Fermoy.
I carried a letter from Sir Richard Doherty to the commandant
of the depot battalion — a Colonel Egerton, who had once
been my venerable cousin's adjutant. There is a certain
aspect of awe about the interior of a barracks when it is entered
by a young officer for the first time ; and the square of the old
barracks at Fermoy made no exhilarating-looking picture as
it appeared to me in the gloom of a damp November evening
when I made my way across it to the house of the colonel
commanding. But how kind and bright was mj'' reception at
the hands of Colonel Egerton and his wife ! I was to come
and lunch with them the next day. I was to dine at the mess
that evening just as I was. The colonel took me himseK to
the officer commanding my depot, and then I went back to
the httle hotel to get ready for the mess dinner.

JP

CHAPTER II

Old soldiers and young. Orders for India. A four months' voyacre.

Bunnah.

I HAD had but little acquaintance with the world up to this
time. Fifty years ago boys were very far removed from the
intercourse with older persons which is now so common among
them. The thing, therefore, that struck me most strongly
was the kind and familiar manner with which I was treated
from the first moment of joining at Fermoy. Nearly all the
older officers had seen service in the Crimean War, which was
then only a recent event. The majority of them were splendid
fellows ; that long siege had been a wonderful school for the
forming of manly characters. They had a type and manner
of their own. Their hair was not cut short, as in the present
day, but was worn long over the ears ; and they had large
fuzzy whiskers, with moustaches that went straight into them.
They smoked much, and some of them drank a good deal ;
but they carried their liquor well, as it used to be said. There
were the depots of six different regiments in the battalion — two
companies from each regiment (twelve in all on parade), with
a colonel, two majors, an adjutant, and quartermaster specially
attached as battalion officers. Some of the captains had been
promoted from the ranks for distinguished conduct on the
field. The colonel, Isaac Moore, had risen from the ranks.
He was an old officer, with the profile of an eagle, the voice of
a Stentor, and a heart of great goodness. He was exceedingly
strict on all matters of duty, a splendid drill after the manner
of the time, and he rarely left the barracks except to take the
battaUon out to the drill field. His pronunciation of some
military words was peculiar. Qp was warned not to exert
his voice too much on pairade, but he persisted in giving the
long-drawn-out cautionary commands of the old Peninsular
drill days, such as, ' The battalion will change front by the
wheel and countermarch of subdivisions round the centre ' ;

18 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

shallow where I was standing, expecting every moment to
smash rod, line, and wheel ; but luck was on my side. Nothing
broke, and in ten minutes or so my fish was boring quietly in
some deeper water nearer shore. Then I waded back to the
bank, and getting his head down stream, took him down to
where an eddying backwater, close under the bank, had
collected on the surface of the water a lot of white foam. Into
this little circular pool I steered mj^ salmon. I had no gaS,
and he lay just beneath the surface. I could see that he was
no smaU fish, but a salmon of ten or eleven pounds. What
was to be done ? No one was near to help. I had a pocket-
knife of ordinary size with me. I opened its larger blade,
got down to the lower ledge of turf close by the pool, and as
the now tired fish came slowly round in the eddy and the
foam, close against the bank, I struck the Uttle knife with
my right full into his shoulder, holding the rod in my left hand
bent in towards the shore. The fish gave one great plunge ;
but the blow was straight and sure, and I found that my
stroke had pinned him against the bank. Then, dropping the
rod from my left hand, I got my fingers under the gills and
lifted the salmon safelj^ in to the shore. He was a beautiful
fresh-run fish. I got back to the mess as the long June evening
was closing — wet, tired, but very proud of my feat ; and as
the depot battaUon had many good anglers among its numbers,
I had to go through the scene in the ante-room with all the
original paraphernalia of the performance shown in action.

There was an old captain of the 95th Regiment in the
battalion who had his quarters on the opposite side of the
passage where I Uved — Captain Robert Weild — * Old Bob
Weild,' as he was popularly called amongst us youngsters.
He was a very quaint specimen of a soldier now quite extinct.
He drank a good deal, and smoked pipes of many kinds and
colours. He spoke the broadest Lowland Scotch. He took
a fancy to me, and would often come into my room with his
long cherry-stick pipe and sit smoking at the fire and telling
me of his early life and former service. He was a native of
the town of Wigtown, where his father had been the principal
baker, and young Bob's business had been to deliver the
bread through the town. He preferred to try his fortune as
a soldier, and enlisted in the 95th Regiment. He went to the

SAILING FOR INDIA 19

Crimea as a colour-sergeant, was at Abna and Inkermann, and
did his full share of trench service. One day a round-shot
hopped over the parapet and struck Colour-Sergeant Weild
in the chest. Fortunately a wave of wind which came a little
in front of the ball had turned the man shghtly on one side,
so that the mass of iron only carried away two or three ribs,
laying bare the heart below them. To all appearances he
was killed ; but there was a spark of life still left m him : the
heart had not been actually touched. * As they were carrying
me back through the trenches/ he used to say, ' we met a
surgeon who had a well-filled box of medical comforts, and
the first thing this good fellow did was to empty a pint of strong
brandy down my throat ; that kept the heart going and saved
my life.' It must be said that old Bob never forgot the hquid
to which he owed his salvation. Sometimes he would stay
late in the little club at the foot of the barracks hill ; and as
I would be crossing the square to the mess, I would encounter
mj'' old friend making the best of his way from the gate to his
quarters, walking straight to the front, but gazing at the
ground with a fixed stare and an expression in his e3'e that told
me it would not be safe to speak a single word to him. He
had taken his line from the gate, and he was steering for his
door upon a mental compass bearing so fine that the smallest
whisper might have deranged it. On other occasions we
passed each other like ships in the night. Orders for India
came m the early summer of 1860, and we went our several
wa3'3 — old Weild to India, I to Burmah. Six months later I
heard of his death in Central India.

I was very active in those days. A month before we started
for the East there were foot races in Limerick, where I won
the two hundred and fifty yards hurdle race against the south
of Ireland garrison.

Our 69th draft — three ofl&cers and one hundred' and twenty
men — embarked at Queenstown in the ship Coldstream for
Madras in July 1860. There were also in this Uttle vessel of
eight hundred tons sixty men of the Royal Irish Regiment
and three ofiicers. After a delay of three days in Queenstown
Harbour, for laying in provision for a long voyage, we were
towed out beyond the mouth of the harbour and cast off. It
blew a btiff gale that night, and we kept plunging into a heavy

20 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

head sea, for land was on the lea and there was no sea room.
It was the 11th of July, a Wednesday ; I remember the day
of the week because from the midday of that Wednesday to
the evenmg of the foUowmg Sunday no food passed my lips.
I was then nearly dead of starvation. For one hundred
and twenty-four days we continued to crawl over the ocean,
and in those four months saw but two specks of land —
Madeira, and St. Paul's Island in the Southern Indian
Ocean. We lay becalmed in the vicinity of the equator
for three weeks. The drinking water was horrible — the
colour of weak tea and with a taste that was nauseating. It
had first rotted in the barrels, then fermented, and after it
had gone through that cleansing process it was declared to
be wholesome. Bad as it was, the men became mutinous
because they could not get enough of it to satisfy their thirst
when we were lying becalmed in the tropics. After some
forty days we caught the south-east trade winds and shaped a
course towards the coast of South America ; then by Tristan
da Cunha, which was hidden in dense masses of clouds ; and
round the Cape of Good Hope, but some four hundred miles
to the south of it. Here, towards the end of September, we
entered upon a vast ocean of gigantic roUers, a grey limitless
waste of waters that came surging after us in stupendous billows
as though they would overwhelm the little speck of ship that
carried us. Vast flocks of sea-birds circled high above our
masts.

The captain was a most excellent man ; the crew of twenty-
nine hands were strong and fearless fellows. It was often a
splendid sight to see them aloft, double reefing topsails on a
night of storm and lightning in the Southern Indian Ocean —
black darkness everywhere, then a flash lighting up the deck,
masts, and spars, and showmg the black specks aloft in the
rocking rigging, clewing in the flapping canvas to the topsail
yards.

We kept night-watch like the crew, and wretched work it
was ; the ship leaked badly from the beginning, but it was
only when the stormy southern latitudes were reached that
the leakage became really serious. The ship was then making
several inches of water every hour. We had one pump near
the mainmast on the quarter-deck ; and it used to take the

A DANGEROUS CARGO 21

men of the watch, with the pump handles fully manned, a
full hour's hard work before the water was got out of the vessel.
Three times in the night this work went on. The soldiers
hated it so much that it was no easy matter to get them up
from the lower deck out of their hammocks to the wet and
slippery quarter-deck.

With the sergeant of the watch one had to creep along the
odour-reeking deck under the hammocks, shouting, and often
unslinging the hammock lines before the men would turn out.
Then, when the handles were manned, they would vent their
ill-humour upon the wretched pump by working it lil^e demons
up and down — until the captain, hearing the banging, would
rush out from his cabin behind the little ' cuddy ' vociferating
to the men that if they broke the pumps the ship would smk
in thirty hours. This miserable work went on until the ship's
course was turned northwards from the Uttle island of St.
Paul's, and as smoother latitudes were gained the leakage
lessened. We did not know then, but it was afterwards dis-
covered, what was the cause of the leakage. The ship was
carrying a very dangerous cargo, and one that should have
made it impossible for her owners to obtain a commission
for the carriage of troops — railroad iron. She had six hundred
tons of iron rails down below the other ordinary cargo.
It was this dead soUd weight that had caused her timbers
to open in the gale and heavy seas into which we plunged
the night after leaving Ireland. Fortunately the rent was
just at or above the water-line, so when the sea was fairly
smooth the intake of water was small ; but whenever bad
weather came, and the vessel's bows went down mto the waves,
the water came in in quantities, and for six hours in the twenty-
four the men were at the pumps. There was no Plimsoll in
those days : the shipowners could do as they pleased ; and a
five-pound note placed in the palm of an inspector between
decks by the agent from the office in Leadenhall Street could
lighten the duties of inspection and remove many doubts and
difficulties.

My kit was a small one, but I had managed to include in it
one box of books, and I was able to borrow other works from
brother officers on board. I read a great deal in the long
weary months, sailing the great circle to India.

22 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In a little book wliich I wrote more than forty years ago,
subsequent to that voyage, I was comparmg the sailing ship
of the old bygone times with the steamers of to-day, and I
wrote that it was then ' the great circle, but now it was the
short cut/ A London literar}- review, with the well-known
infallibility of the editorial armchair, which embraces every-
thing m knowledge from a needle to an anchor, pointed out
that I was in error, inasmuch as ' the great circle ' and ' the
short cut ' were sjiionymous expressions. But he forgot that
we were dealing with sailing ships, and that the trade wind
was the chief factor concerned in the question. From England
to India by the short cut via the Cape is about ten thousand
miles ; but no sailing ship attempting that passage in the
teeth of the trade wind could get to its destination under a
term of years. The great circle, which the sailing vessels
still follow en route to India — makmg a fair wind of the south-
east trade by running towards the coast of South America
from the Line and thence, before the powerful western winds,
by Tristan da Cunha to St. Paul's and Amsterdam Islands,
where they turn north for India — is some eight or nine thousand
miles longer in distance, although it saves many months in
time.

Now and again on that long voyage we had some incidents
that gave us, at least, a subject for conversation at the little
' cuddy ' table where we gathered for meals. One morning,
in the earlj)- watch, strange sounds were heard as of some one
singing under the bottom of the ship. No one could locate
the sound. It was fitful and indistinct, hilarious and despondent
by turns. Men looked at each other. At last the morning
roU was called, and it was found that there was a man missing.
AU the decks were searched, the cook's galley, the long-boat,
where the six or eight sheep and the dozen pigs were, and the
forecastle wherein the crew had their bunks — ^no man could
be found ; but stiU the mj^sterious sounds rose at intervals.
At length it was discovered that a person looking down the
square hole through which the long chain cable was passed
into its box below, could hear the strange noise with greater
distinctness than elsewhere in the ship. This discovery soon
solved the mystery : the missing man was far down in the
chain locker. Some one descended the shaft. A very fat

INDIA SIGHTED 23

soldier was found near the bottom of the aperture, stretched
upon some cargo in the hold. Fresh discoveries followed.
The captain and the mate descended. From where the fat
man was found a track led over piles of general cargo to a bulk-
head, which was directly under the stem part of the ship.
This bulkhead had had a hole cut through it into the spirit-
room. This hole passed through, a still stranger sight was
revealed : many cases of gin and other strong spirits, which
had been destined for the consumption of Asiatic committees
in general, were found opened and rifled ; a comfortable straw-
lined tap-room was next found among the cases, and many
small candle ends, some of which, in Ueu of candlesticks, had
been stuck on to the ship's side, the timbers of which the lighted
candles had in many places charred. Here had been the chosen
meeting-place of a select few among the crew and soldiers.
Night after night those faithful fellows had descended the chain
locker and sought the seclusion of this spirituous paradise. At
last, in a happy moment for the remainder of the uninitiated,
the fat soldier was bidden to the feast. He had descended
easily ; but when the hour came for reascending to the cold
upper world, either his size or the quantity of liquor he had
swallowed prevented the ascension. His companions could
not drag him up the locker, and he had to be left at its base :
elation or terror did the rest. The fatness of this particular
male siren had probably saved the good ship Coldstream from
a fate worse than any shipwreck ; and the hardest part of the
thing was that he was the sole man of the wrong-doers whom
it was possible to punish. Instead of being the recipient of
many Humane Society's medals for savmg the lives of about
two hundred and fifty human beings, he spent the greater
portion of the remainder of the voyage in leg-irons.

At daybreak on 2nd November land was in sight. We had
been heading for it a day or two before, and there it was at last
— a low coast beaten by a white surf, fringes of palm-trees,
some white houses, and a range of hills beyond the Coromandel
coast. Some forty miles north of Madras we anchored in the
open roadstead of that town about noon. A high surf was
running, and only a naked Catamaran man on his three logs
lashed together could come out to us with letters and orders
carried in his skull cap of oiled wicker work. After three or

24 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

four days' rolling and pitching at anchor we were allowed to
land, and when evening came we all marched to a place called
Poonamallee, about twelve miles west of Madras. Every-
thing was new and strange to us — the people, the trees, the fire-
flies in the bamboo hedges, the cicadas in the feathery palm-
trees, the bull-frogs in the grassy fields, the endless multi-
plication of life human and animal everywhere to be seen,
heard, or felt. Poonamallee was a delightful old cantonment,
built in the days of Clive or earlier — an old semicircular mess-
house with mango-trees surrounding it, and a broad verandah
raised two feet above the ground, supported along its outer
edge by pillars of snow-white ' chunam ' ; three hundred yards
away a Moorish fort with a broad ditch around it full of bull-
frogs; and beyond it the village or town of Poonamallee, a very
extraordinary assemblage of Hindoo temples and houses, the
former representing, with an effrontery not to be abashed,
the lower and most disreputable fines of the Hindoo worship.

This old depot station was commanded by one of the most
mteresting veterans it was ever my good fortune to meet in
life — Colonel Impett, formerly of the 71st Foot, in which
regiment he had fought at Waterloo. He was now in his
sixtieth year, taU and spare, the most lovable old soldier who
ever drew to him the heart of man or woman. What days I
had fistening to this man ! After Waterloo he had marched
to Paris, when he was not yet fifteen ; then later he went to
Canada. He had been at Fermoy in the 'twenties, and now
for thirty years his service had been wholly in India. Before
I was a week at Poonamallee he had taken me out to shoot
snipe with him in the paddy fields, five miles from the station.
In the gharry going to and coming from the ground, and in
drives to and from Madras, he often used to speak about his
early experiences — particularly of the day at Waterloo. He
was given a commission at either Eton or Harrow, and had
been hurried out to Belgium in the spring of 1815 to join his
regiment there cantoned — part of that vast force of about a
million men which those brave feUows, the kings and emperors
of Europe, had gathered round the French frontiers to fight
the single soldier whose army two months earUer had numbered
a bare five hundred all told. He described the repeated charges
of the French cavalry upon his regiment in square on the windy

ON TO BURMAH 25

slope of the ridge behind the hollow road that ran from La
Haye Sainte. When night fell the wearied men, already
half asleep, lay down where they stood. Impett caught a
black horse which passed by without a rider ; he tied the
rein to his wrist, and then sank into a deep sleep. When
he awoke in the early June dawn, the horse was gone. * It
was a lump and a line all day,' he said : * a lump to resist the
cavalry, a line to avoid the havoc wrought by the round-shot.'
That was certainly a baptism of fire for a boy of fourteen.

Many incidents of lesser interest in his Hfe he used to speak
about in those httle shooting excursions — of days camped on
an island in Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, fishing and deer
hunting ; of long walks in the mountains I had lately left near
Fermoy. One day, in a glen somewhere in those hills, he and
his companion, Captain Markham, a noted shot, came upon
a still in full work. No information was given to the excise
ofiicers in the town, and a couple of weeks later Markham and
Impett found a small keg of poteen whisky laid outside the
door of their rooms in the old barracks.

After two or three months in Poonamallee the draft moved
on to Burmah by steamer from Madras. We touched at several
ports on the east side of the Bay of Bengal. Boats carrying
fruits and lunka cheroots surrounded the vessel at one of these
places. After a time many men were found to be drunk on
board ; this was strange, because care had been taken to
prevent the bringing of spirits on board. But the attack
usually beats the defence. We found on close examination
that the oranges in many cases had a small round hole drilled
in the rind, through which the juice of the fruits had been
extracted and the vacuum filled in with arrack, the rind plug
being again inserted.

In due time we reached Rangoon, and shortly afterwards we
embarked in Burmese boats for the Pegu River, and marched
thence across the twenty miles of low-lying jungle and high,
grass-covered waste which divided the Pegu River from the
larger Sittang.

A very perfect pagoda, one of the loftiest and most grace-
fully tapering structures of the kind in Burmah, Hfts its ' thay '
of many bells- three hundred feet and more above this wilderness
of grass. Our camp was at the base of this beautiful object.

26 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

now the sole survivor of everything that had made Pegu one
of the greatest cities of the East in the early days of Portuguese
commercial enterprise. It was not easy to look up at this
glittering musical spire in the hot glare of daylight ; but when
evening was closing over the landscape, which everywhere
showed evidences of ruin and retrogression, the eyes were
instinctively drawn upwards to this triple tiaraed crown of
tinkling bells, whose lark-like music feU soft as dew through
the cooling air. Gone was everything else of that once proud
kingdom of Pegu ; this, the work of some old Buddhist saint
or hero, was left alone with its own music in the wilderness.

We marched at night across the twenty miles of grass and
jungle, and at a spot called Khyatsoo, on the Sittang, found a
flotilla of boats ready to embark us for a long journey of twenty
days up that river. The wide river was here still subject to
the tide, which at times forms a ' bore ' of a very dangerous
character, A few years earUer the entire half-battahon of a
native infantry regiment, with all its o£&cers, baggage, etc.,
had been swamped near this place by the tidal wave — the
' CaUgima Yeh,' the bad water of the Burmese. We soon
passed the wide, tidal part of the river, and entered the narrower
stream, which was still high and turbid after the monsoon rains.
At first the strangeness of the scene, and above all the boats
and boatmen, gave occupation to the mind. The boats were
of a shape and structure unlike any other craft in the world :
about twelve feet of the stern end of the boat was thatched
with strong reeds, the remainder of the boat was open, the
stem sloped high above the water, and at its extreme end
a high wooden chair gave the steersman a lofty seat, from which
he was able to move a big spoon-shaped oar, by a simple turn
of his hand, to the right or left. He thus looked over the
thatched cabin and weU beyond the bows and the bamboo
platform from which the crew worked the boat. The crew of
four men took it in turns to propel the boat with long poles,
which they worked by going forward to the bow, placing the
pole against the hollow of the shoulder, and in this bending
position walliing down the narrow bamboo platform to the
thatched cabin ; then, releasing the poles from the bottom,
they went back again to the bow to repeat the toilsome journey.
The current, swollen by the rains, ran strong, and during quite

UP THE SITTANG RIVER 27

half of the clay the boat was brushing against the tall reeds that
covered the banks, sometimes on one side of the river, some-
times on the other. One would have thought that after their
long work at this laborious poling, the men would have been
glad to lie down to rest when we tied up at night against the
bank ; but that they seldom or never did. When the rice
was boiled and eaten play of some sort began, and often in the
grey morning hght I have looked out from under the thatched
roof of the boat and seen the crew still hard at work at cards,
or stones, or some queer game of chequers. In the damp fog
which then hung over shore and river, they would get up from
the little fire by which they had squatted all night, unfasten
their ' loongies,' and take a plunge in the yellow waters of the
river, diving about like ducks, and coming up wet and glisten-
ing to resume the long bamboo poles for the day.

Our average rate of progress was about ten mUes a day. Now
and again the boat would tie up a little earUer than usual, or
the pace would be arranged so as to arrive at some village
where a ' pooay ' or play was going on in celebration of a local
marriage or funeral.

At some of the larger villages a pecuhar smeU would manifest
itself when the cooking hour arrived : this was caused by the
preparation or consumption of the celebrated Burmese deUcacy
known as ' Napee." As the river was now falling quickly, these
napee nights became more frequent, because the time had
come to unearth the deposits of fish, buried in the sand-
banks of the river before the torrential rains of the monsoon
began to fill its wide bed. A deep pit is dug in the sand
and filled with fish of many kinds ; the sand is pressed down
upon the mass of fish ; a long pole is driven into the bar to
mark the spot. The river rises, and water overflows the
cache for six months ; then, when the waters subside,
the cache is dug up, a terribly pungent efiiuvium is evolved
from the opened pit, and the napee is carried off by the villagers
to be eaten as a special delicacy during the next twelve months.
The traveller is conscious of a napee night while he is yet at
a considerable distance from the place of entertainment. But,
after aU, has not man, even in his most civilised state, some
bonne-bouche of this kind — a venerable Stilton, a mite-riddled
Roquefort, a semi-liquefied Camembert ?

28 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

After three long weeks of this slow travel our boats reached
the bank of the river at the top of which stood Tonghoo. We
had been twenty-one days doing these two hundred miles ; but
at the end of these three weeks one had gained a knowledge
of Burmese life, labours, and manners which was an asset of
much use to one in many ways.

At this station of Tonghoo I foimd my regiment, the 69th.
They had been here more than three years — one might say
buried in the Burman forest, for communication was at that
time so tedious that a letter took two and a half months to
come from London, and a voyage by the long sea route was,
as we have just seen, a matter ot about six months' actual
travel.

Under conditions of life such as these, rust of mind and
body must be the prevailing features of European life. The
seasons, too, helped the distance and environment. Tonghoo
led to no place ; it was the end of the track : beyond and on
every side was forest. This month of February was the middle
of the dry season. In three months the clouds would sweep
up over the tree-tops from the sea, and in terrific thunder and
lightning the ball of the monsoon would open. Then for
nearly six months it would not be possible to stir beyond the
roads of the cantonment. All the forest would be a swamp ;
the river, which was now thirty feet down in its channel,
would be running level with the tops of the banks ; the bull-
frogs would croak outside every compound ; and all the creep-
ing things that love heat and damp — scorpions, centipedes,
huge spiders, strange lizards, beetles, cobras, and pythons —
would hold general carnival.

With these climatic conditions in view, it became necessary
to do something in the way of exploring the surrounding
country in the next couple of months, while the forest tracks
could still be travelled by a pony. Once the monsoon began,
only the elephant could manage to plough through the deep
black mud. Daily rides were therefore taken in many directions.
Tonghoo, like all Burmah, has had better days. A huge
waUed city had been once here ; the rectangular wall, measuring
one mile on each face, alone remained with its enormous
ditch, now a jungle-grown swamp. Inside this great brick
waU, which was thirty feet thick, a little wicker town of bamboo

LIFE IN THE FOREST 29

and rushes occupied about a twelfth part of the origmal city
site. The pagoda again remained the sole remnant of the old
glory, and a beautiful pagoda it was, though not equal to its
Pegu rival. Beyond this great city wall spread mingled spaces
of low jungle and paddy fields, all of which were now quite
dry. As one galloped along the sandy jungle tracks there
would open out at sudden intervals some Uttle village scene —
a dozen bamboo huts ; a small pagoda with its ghstening
spire ; a teak-wood rest-house for travellers ; a little Poongee
monastery, the cocoa palms and mango-trees about it, and its
shrine piled with httle figures of Buddha, cross-legged and long-
armed, with long pendent ears, and big dreamy eyes looking
out upon a big dreamy world.

It would be impossible not to like the Burmese people —
good-natured, nice-mannered, pleasant people. They never
scowled at one nor shouted some unknown word of abuse ;
they were glad to render any little service of the wayside
without thought of * backsheesh ' ; everj^body smoked big
cheroots made up in a large green leaf; everybody seemed happy.

But the life of the forest was the one I was most anxious to
see ; and late in May I managed, in company with a brother
officer, to induce the official in charge of the Forest Department
to lend us three elephants (their purchase was quite beyond
the reach of our subaltern purses), and loading these animals
with our supplies, we sent them to a place some sixty miles
south, there to await our arrival by boat. This time the
craft selected was a long ' dug-out ' canoe of teak wood. With
ten or a dozen men paddling, we travelled by the hght of a
full moon, and went gaily down-stream, expecting to reach our
landing-place by dayhght, and to find the elephants awaiting
us with our supphes, and breakfast ready. But it was noon
before our destination was reached : there were no elephants,
no food, no anything. We sat all day in a Burman bamboo
hut, expecting that every hour would bring us refreshment.
Evening came, still no food. Next day it was the same ; then
hunger began to assert itself, for rice and napee were not
encouraging, so my companion, who spoke a Uttle Burmese,
essayed to get a fowl in the village ; but the people were aU
good Buddhists, and no one would sell us a fowl, much less
kill one. The day wore on, and we were becoming ravenous.

30 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My friend sallied out again with his gun. There was an old cock
on the outskirts of the town, and this antiquated bird he was
allowed to shoot. The woman of the house where we had
taken up our abode plucked the bird in some form, and boiled
it in an earthen vessel. It was then served up half hot, but
very tough. I tried it, but had to forbear at the third bit ;
my companion, with a braver digestion, performed an unhappy
despatch upon his victim, while I looked on. Just as the
melancholy meal ended, I heard what seemed to be the solemn
sound of the elephant beU in the neighbouring forest. Yes,
it was our belated beasts coming slowly into harbour with all
our good things on board. That evening we went on about
twelve miles into the forest to a place called Banloung, and
camped there in absolute freedom — neither house nor village
was near. Some previous hunting party had put up a rude
shelter of bamboos. A lake close by had water ; round the
lake there were large spaces free of forest. We began to beat
for big game next morning. It was a hunter's paradise : bits
of high grass almost level with the shoulders of the elephants
alternated with stretches of splendid forest ; there was low
jungle, high jungle, and no jungle. To these varied covers
aU sorts of animals had come — sambhur, bison, themming, and
jumping deer. It was often like rabbit shooting in bracken,
only the rabbits were sometimes sixteen hands high, and the
bracken six feet. The themming were in grand herds in the
open spaces, the old stags with heavy brow antlers always
keeping on the outskirts of the herd. We saw the tracks of
many tigers, but the bodies of none — the cover was too dense.
The monsoon broke while we were yet in the forest, and
when we moved back the elephants had to swim across a
dozen nullahs, which had been dry as dust a fortnight earlier.

The monsoon ran its dreary course during the next few
months. The rain pattered in big straight drops all night
long upon the broad leaves of toddy palm and plantain, and
the whole land was streaming and steaming with water.
Everybody went to mess with lanterns carried in front,
for snakes were very numerous, and they had a disagreeable
habit of gettmg up from the wet lower ground on to the little
raised tracks of brickwork which led from the bungalows to
the mess-house.

DOWN THE SITTANG 31

Among the senior officers in the station there were some
strange and interesting survivals of an earlier generation.
At times, when the Madras troops paraded with our regiment,
one occasionally heard strange words of command given to
the brigade, such as, ' The brigade will prime and load/ All
the drill formations were those which old Davy Dundas had
designed in the days before the Peninsular War ; and although
the flint-lock musket had disappeared twenty years earlier,
the recollection of its cumbersome processes of combustion
still lingered among our seniors. All the same, they were fine
old gentlemen, and it was to one of them that I am indebted
for my first quasi-staff appointment.

The regiment was inspected in December 1861 by a medical
officer of high degree, whose official report declared it to be
suffering from a too prolonged sojourn in the enfeebling forests
of Burmah, and who recommended its early removal to the
drier climate of India. Orders were received in January 1862
for our removal to Madras. The battalion was to descend the
river in two separate bodies each of five companies. The old
colonel who was to command the last of these detachments
appointed me as the staff officer of the wing, and aU at once I
found myself adjutant, paymaster, and quartermaster of some
four or five hundred men. A month later we moved in a great
fleet of boats down the Sittang River. The water was now
very low, and at one or two places elephants were used to shove
with their heads the flat-bottomed boats over the sand-bars
in the stream. Where the river ended and the estuary began
we had some exciting experiences of the dreaded ' bore.' Our
boatmen were fully prepared for it, and the boats were all
taken out from the banks and anchored in mid-channel ; bow-
men, crew, and steersman were all at their posts ; the ' Caligima
Yeh ' was constantly uttered among them. After we had been
some time thus moored a low noise became audible far down
stream ; this sound gradually grew in depth and volume, but
neither the water around our boats nor the reach of the river
below us showed any sign of motion. The sound increased
rapidly ; it was now coming to us across the neck of reed-
covered land round which the river disappeared at the end
of the last reach which our sight commanded. All at once a
great white billow of water appeared, sweeping round this

32 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

neck of land. At the banks the splash of this white wave
rose several feet in the air ; but when the entire wave had
rounded the turn, one could see that in the central part of
the river the wave was comparatively low, yet all of it was
curling forward almost in a straight line up-stream. It struck
our boats fuU on the bows ; all of them rose well to the impact ;
but some were torn from their moormgs, making confusion as
they ran amuck among the others. It was a fine sight —
the ' bore ' itself, and the manner in which the boatmen bore
themselves.

The next night we marched across the low ground to Pegu.
At the moment of starting from Khyatsoo an incident occurred
which fortunatelj^ ended happily. A man of recalcitrant
character m the regiment, who had been a prisoner for some
time, refused to march. As I was acting as paymaster as well
as adjutant, the prisoners and the cash chest of the regiment
were in my charge, I had come to the guard to see the cash
chest safely put into a Burmese buffalo waggon, and the guard
and prisoners moved with it after the column. As the first
battalion was moving off, the prisoner in question suddenly
refused to budge. What was to be done ? The only course
possible was to tie him to the rear of the waggon ; he would
then have to march perforce. But in this arrangement the
buffaloes had not been reckoned with. These curious animals
have never taken to the English invaders. You will see a
small native boy leading or driving a pair of enormous blue
beasts with perfect command over them, but they will shy from,
and sometimes charge at, any European who may approach
them. On this occasion, no sooner was the word to march
given, than the buffaloes attached to our treasure waggon,
seeing that the other end of the waggon had an English soldier
attached to it, began to behave in a very excited manner ;
and to make matters worse, our prisoner still refused to march.
The only thing then to be done was to lift the man bodily
into the waggon, and put him in company with the cash chest.
This was done in a twinkling ; but now the buffaloes, growing
quite beyond control, started off across country over dry paddy
* bunds,' deep ruts, and many other obstacles. The guard was
quickly left behind ; the infuriated buffaloes, with their driver,
the waggon, the cash chest, the prisoner in tow, were careering

EMBARKATION FOR MADRAS 33

madly over the plain, making the most horrible noise possible
to imagine. Being on horseback I was able to keep up with
this tornado ; and I could see that in the stampede the prisoner
and the regimental cash chest seemed to be having a tremen-
dous boxing match in the interior of the conveyance, as they
were shot up and down and about by the incessant joltings
of this primitive vehicle. The prisoner, as a light weight in
the contest, got a good deal the worst of it. There was a hole
in the wicker bottom of the waggon, and at last the prisoner's
legs got into this opening, and the unequal fight was terminated
by his whole body following its legs through the aperture,
leaving the regimental cash chest alone in its glory. The rope
which tied the prisoner to the waggon quickly ran its length,
and then he was dragged along the ground after the waggon
in a very alarming manner. AU I could do was to hack at
the ropes with my sword as I galloped along, and between the
cutting at the line and the strain upon it the man was soon set
free. He was black, and bruised, and bleeding, but the first
words he uttered when the guard had overtaken us soon re-
assured me of his safety. ' I '11 march now,' he said.

About the beginning of spring the wing embarked at
Rangoon for Madras.

CHAPTER III

From Rangoon to Madras. A hurricane at sea. The Nilgherry Mountains.
The Carnatic Plain. The lives and thoughts of Eastern peoples. Leave
spent on the western coast.

We were carried in two vessels — a steamer and a sailing ship,
the first towing the second. As my lot fell to the sailing vessel,
I will deal with it only. For two days all went well with us,
but on the morning of the third day a change began to show
itself in the aspects of sea and sky. A curious grey gloom
spread itself quickly over the circle of the ocean ; everything
became the same colour ; there was little or no wind, but the
still, unbroken surface heaved a little. This undulation grew
more perceptible as the morning passed, until it began to lift
our ship uneasily, and made her rise and fall upon the tow-line.
The barometer began to fall. Whatever it was, we appeared
to be going to meet it, and it seemed that it was coming to
meet us also. Our captain was a rather elderly man of the
Indian Marine Service, and he appeared to be suffering from
marked depression of spirits, which one of the junior officers
explained was the result of the death of a brother, who had
been drowned a couple of weeks earlier in the Rangoon River
through the upsetting of his boat as he was proceeding from
the shore to his ship lying in the river. During the two days
we had been on board he had kept to his cabin, and had not
taken his meals with us in the saloon. The second officer, a
gentleman named Salmon, impressed us all as being the
moving and governing spirit of the ship's company. These
latter were all Lascars from the Chittagong side of the Bay
of Bengal. They were a poor lot, but, so far, there was little
or no occasion for their services on the deck or aloft, nor did
it seem likely that there would be any ; all the sails were furled.
The chain cable had been left in great coils along the deck, for
the run across the Bay of Madras in the wake of the steamer

34

IN THE JAWS OF A HURRICANE 36

even at the slow rate of towing was not expected to occupy
more than five or six days. The Tubalcain, as our ship was
named, was an old and cranky craft, half transport, half
warship. She mounted a couple of guns on the main-deck.
The strong suns of the Bay of Bengal and the Persian Gulf
had not improved the seaworthiness of her timbers.

At the head of the native crew there was a powerful and
masterful-looking * Syrang,' or mate of Lascars, in whom both
European officers and Indian crew seemed to have complete
confidence.

We passed the Cocos Channel between Burmah and the
Andaman Islands, and were now well into the centre of the
Bay of Bengal. Suddenly the gloomy murkiness of the sea
and sky became lit to the westward with vivid lightnings, and
the rumbles of an incessant thunder struck the ear ; there
was still hardly any wind, but hot puffs of storm came at in-
tervals from ahead, ceasing as quickly as they arose. Then all
at once a storm began, and a vast commotion manifested itself
among the crew on deck. The motion of the ship on the tow-
line had become more and more uneasy as the sea rose. AU
at once a big wave sprang like a panther upon the bows of the
Tvhalcain, scattered the Lascars that were on the forecastle,
and jumped again into the sea, carrying with it our splendid
Syrang. The Syrang swam bravely, and as he passed beneath
the stern of the ship he caught at the log-line that was hanging
from it, trailing in the wake of the vessel ; but the rate at
which we were being towed, slow though it was, was too fast for
the man to let him get a firm grip on the thin line, and it ran
through his fingers to the end where the patent brass log was
twirling like a fishing minnow ; that, of course, was impossible
to hold, and we saw the poor fellow still swimming bravely on
the tops of the waves behind us. There was a shout to cut
the tow-line, but that could not be done without orders from
the steamer, which all this time had been tugging us into the
jaws of a hurricane, for that was what all this strange turmoil,
and thunder, and gloom of the afternoon had really meant.

The captain of the steamer seemed now to realise what he
was in for, for he shouted through a trumpet, ' I am throwing
off the hawser,' and in a couple of mLuutes more we were
separated from him. I shall never forget the look of things

36 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

that evening when we found ourselves left alone in that deepen-
ing light and rising hurricane, as we saw our hitherto guide
and leader steaming off into the black gloom of the coming
night. There was a great deal of confusion for a moment,
but the best men stepped instinctively to the front, and dis-
cipline soon reasserted itself. It had all happened so suddenly
that it was inevitable the parting of the ways should have
found us unprepared. The second officer, whose name I have
given, sho"W''ed himself master of the situation in a moment.
The first thing he had to do was to restore spirit and confidence
among the Lascars, shaken as they were by the recent loss of
their leader. Fortunately, we were as yet only on the outer
edge of the main whirlwind, that stiU lay to the westward, and
the lightnmg and thunder were all ahead of us. Four of the
strongest of the Lascars were now lashed to the tiller, a few
sails were set on the lower yards and booms, the decks were
cleared of some of the loose rubbish that encumbered them,
and a course was laid which gave the ship greater ease in the
now boiling cross-seas that were showing themselves. When
night closed we were running towards the north-west, amid
a rapid alternation of blinding flashes of lightnmg and inky
darkness. The hatches of the lower decks had aU been battened
down upon the soldiers and the women and children, the dead-
lights fastened, and only the reefed foresail and some other
light fore-and-aft canvas set. The barometer was still falling.
A couple of hours later the full crash of the hurricane came.
No one can ever describe such a scene accurately. There are
things in it that when put into words are bound to appear
exaggerations. There is no sea and no sky, and no air. They
have all become one vast, black, solid, gigantic animal, com-
pared to which the lion is a lamb, the whale a minnow, the
biggest cannon a child's popgun. There is no sea running
as in an ordinary storm ; beneath this awful wind the sea
crouches for a time like a lashed hound, and that is exactly
what it is. It cannot get up and run before that vast wall
of wind. It lies down at first and the wind mows it like grass,
shaves it off in swathes of white foam which are caught up into
the rushing wind itself, so that no eye can open against it,
and no face can face its saltness. But the roar is the thmg
that lives longest in memory ; it seems to swallow even the

SUBSIDENCE OF THE STORM 37

thunder, as though that too, like the sea, had been brayed
into it.

As the night wore on the damage grew ; there was no attempt
made to take in sail, and one by one they were blown away
into the night. The ship then was put before the wind, and
we ran as the hurricane listed. Fortunately, there was sea
room on every side. At times we seemed to get thrown into
the trough of the seas. No man could stand on the poop-deck,
and on the quarter-deck the rolling of the vessel set the guns
free from their lashings, and caused them to go rolling from
one side of the deck to the other, until they broke through
the bulwarks and shot out into the sea. The chain cable
also got adrift on the deck, and began to roll its immense links
from side to side as the ship lurched to and fro. The watch
could not live on the deck ; they were brought into the saloon,
where they lay on the floor so beaten that one could walk over
their bodies. Our boats, too, were torn from their davits,
one wave carrying away the long-boat and some live-stock
that were penned within it. Towards morning the upper
foremast went with a great crash, and the wreck of it could
not be cleared. Just before daybreak some one discovered
that the barometer had lifted a shade above the extraordinary
depth to which it had fallen. This news infused life and
vigour into many, who amid these long-continued crashes and
disasters had begun to give up hope, and had made up their
minds that the ship must founder. The unfortunate captain
had shut himself up m his cabm, the Lascar crew were com-
pletely demoralised, half of us landsmen were lying in the most
exhausting pangs of sea-sickness, and the ship herself was
only a floating wreck — boats, yards, gone ; booms broken, guns
disappeared. When daylight came it was seen that the
hurricane was going down as quickly as it had arisen. There
was one man who had fought the elements undauntedly
throughout that long night, Salmon, the second officer. He
had lashed himself securely to the mizzen-mast before the
worst came, and from there he called his orders to the steersmen.
Undoubtedly, he saved the ship.

A dead calm succeeded the rage of storm, the sun came up
bright in the east. Away to the north-west a vast bank of
hurricane was driving towards the Orissa coast. We were

38 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

about one hundred and iBity miles out of our true course, a
dismantled wreck upon the heaving ocean. By the afternoon
things were got into some shipshape, and we were able to
bend some sails and rig up a little canvas again. Then, when
observations had been taken, a course was set for Madras.
Meanwhile the women and children had been brought up
and laid out on the deck ; they had suffered much. The seams
of the deck had opened, the strained timbers had let floods
of water into decks and holds — everything was water-soaked.

A week later we crept into Madras ; the steamer had got in
four days earlier. She gave a bad report of the chances of the
Tuhalcain ; we were given up as lost, poor chaps ! The
Army List page of the 69th Regiment had to be revised, and
then it had to be revised again ! We were quartered in
Fort St. George, a four-company detachment being sent to
Wellington in the Nilgherry HOls. A new colonel and several
officers joined, and fresh drafts were awaiting us. I closed my
accomits with the paymaster and the quartermaster, handed
over the wing documents to the adjutant, and started for the
hills with a wonderful little Pegu pony, which had escaped
injury on the deck of the steamer. He had been thrown
out of his crib and rolled about the deck, but had picked
himself together again and again, and escaped with a few
cuts and bruises. Some other horses had to be cast into the
sea.

I know no change so satisfying to body, soul, and sense as
that which a man experiences when in the month of May he
passes from the Indian plains to the Indian hills. No trans-
formation scene can equal that change. Every wearied sense,
exhausted in the intense heat of the lower lands, sprmgs at
once into Hfe. The air of India, when it is breathed at an
elevation of six thousand to eight thousand feet, is purity and
freshness and life itself, and nowhere does it combine all those
attributes in a higher degree than in the Nilgherry Mountains,
the Blue Hills. Blue they are when seen from a distance,
but green when reached, and what is more, green with all the
verdure and scent of the grasses and flowers of Europe. That
is the touch which makes us at once at home in these beautiful
hills. Through the rose hedges at Coonoor flits the smaU
brown wren ; blackbirds and thrushes build their nests in the

SOME CONTRASTS 39

gardens at Ootacamund, and the lark singa high and clear
in the radiant atmosphere over Dodabetta. All our rare
shrubs are there, too, in tree form — the heliotrope, azalea,
myrtle, magnoha, gardenia grow to forest heights. From
fifty to sixty inches of rain fall annually on this lofty tableland,
from which innumerable streams and watercourses wind their
opposite ways to rivers which fall into the Bay of Bengal on
one side and the Arabian Sea on the other. Once the level of
the upper hills is gained the ground is practicable for riding
almost in any direction, and from the ramparts which look
down on the plains of the Camatic on the east to those which
overhang the coast of Malabar on the west some six hundred
or seven hundred square miles of rolling tableland lie open to
the traveller. If the Garden of Eden was not here, it might
well have been. There are points on the eastern ramparts
of this paradise from which, in gardens hung with roses and
jessamine, one can sit and look down from a clear and bracing
atmosphere upon a hundred miles of the fevered, quivering
plains of Southern India seven thousand feet below.

In this delightful spot I spent a couple of months, the Bur-
mese pony enabling explorations to be made in many directions
through the hills. The change back to Madras in the hottest
time of the year was, however, very trying, and unfortunately
the heat disabled so many of our officers that those who were
not on the sick list found themselves almost incessantly detailed
for garrison or regimental duty. Many of the men fell sick too,
and cholera appeared among them. The ground upon which
Fort St. George stood was a very hotbed of disease. In
October came a welcome change, for the musketry training
began, and I moved to a place called Palaveram, about twelve
miles to the south-west of Fort St. George, for that practice.
It was here possible to see a good deal of the lives of the people
of Southern India — the outdoor people, they who bend and
toil in the paddy-fields ; who dwell in mud huts without the
commonest articles of household furniture ; who have scarcely
any clothes ; who are lean of leg, and shrunken in body, and
hollow of stomach ; whose women work at water wheels all
day long ; who are patient beyond any limit of patience
known to white men ; who live and die scratching the hot
soil and pouring water upon it ; the poor, starved race, the

40 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

feeble foundation of aU the wealth, splendour, and magnifi-
cence the very name of which has made the hungry mouth
of the rapacious West water for the last four hundred years.
How long will it go on ?

Looking back on thef lives of the toiling millions of the
Carnatic plain through fifty years, one can see many thmgs
which were not then visible. In the fulness of his animal
life the British subaltern in a marching regiment is not
overmuch given to philosophic inquiry. He drops easily
into the belief that he represents the highest form of
civilisation, and that he has only to snipe-shoot or pig-stick
his way through the world, while at the same time in some
mysterious manner he is bearing aloft the banner of British
freedom and Western culture. It would be better, perhaps,
for the contmuance of the ' Raj ' which he represents if the
British oificer could by inclination, or even through com-
pulsion, put himself m closer touch and sympathy with the
lives and thoughts of the masses of the Eastern peoples with
whom the greater portion of his service has to be spent under
the conditions of army life now existing in the Empire. I
will not pretend that I was different from my fellows in this
respect, but even at that time I think I had an instinctive
knowledge that the work we were engaged upon in India lacked
the greatest element of stability — sympathy with the people
of India. I find myself writing at this time, ' It has yet to
be proved ... in our rapid development of intellectual power
among the people of India . . . whether it be possible to graft
upon the decaying trunk of an old civilisation the young offshoot
of a newer and more vigorous one. For my part, I am mclined
to think that the edifice we are uprearing in India has its
foundation resting upon sand. We give the native of India our
laws and our scientific discoveries ; he sees that they are good,
and he adopts them and uses them as some counterbalance
to the misfortune of our presence in his land. . . . He knows
that the white man came as a suppliant trader to his shores
and begged humbly for the crumbs of his riches. He believes
our religion to be a thing of yesterday compared to the antiquity
of his own. He knows that by violence and bribery, often-
times by treachery and fraud, we obtained possession of his
lands. He knows that by force of arms and strength of disci-

THE ARMY OLD AND NEW 41

pline we hold our possessions ; nevertheless, he hates and fears
us, and while he adopts and uses the discoveries of our civilisa-
tion, he still holds that civiUsation in contempt. We pull
down the barriers within which his mind has hitherto moved,
but the flood of his inquiry being set flowing, we cannot stay
or confine it to our own limits. I can see signs that this great
structure wo are building will be a ruin before it is completed.
I can find no instance m history of a nation which has possessed
an old and completed civilisation of its own being able to fuse
it, imperfect though it may be, into a newer and a foreign one.'
When I re-read these words now I see better what was wantmg
in the edifice.

There was another subject, and one which appears to have
reached a crucial stage in the political outlook of our present
day, but which my old notebooks show was very evident to
my subaltern comprehension just fifty years ago. Notwith-
standing all I have heard and read about the superiority of
voluntary enlistment over conscription, it is still, I think, an
open question. In a few years the old British army will be
extinct — the rocks of the Crimea and the sands of India
have covered all but the last of it. How will voluntary enlist-
ment work then ? While the army remained small and select,
as it was prior to the Crimean War, all went well ; strong
men were easily obtained, and no soldiers equalled ours in
strength, courage, and endurance. That day is gone. We
have now to garrison India with three times the number of
men that used to suffice there, and our home army has to be
considerably increased. Already the result is visible : the
standard has to be reduced ; men are now taken who would
have been rejected with scorn a few years ago ; we get recruits
no longer from the rural districts, but from the slums of the
big cities, and even from these sources we find it difficult to
obtain them in sufficient numbers. I believe that a serious
war to-morrow would prove to our cost that the army is not
of the old stamp. At present enough is still left of the old
stufiE to counterbalance the admixture of the new element,
but that wUl soon cease, and then England will have to elect
between a bad army and conscription. I shall never forget
the sorry contrast that presented itself on the bank of the
Sittang River at Tonghoo, where one draft of a hundred and

42 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

twenty men of the new model formed up on the high shore from
the boats. The old soldiers had come down from the big teak
huts a couple of hundred yards away to see the new arrivals.
The contrast between the two sets of men was not flattering
to the newcomers. The 69th Regiment had been in the West
Indies during the Crimean War. The men were thus of the
old type, the men of Meeanee and Sobraon, men of splendid
physique and well-chiselled feature. The flank companies
were still in being, the Grenadier and Light Infantry Com-
panies. I often look now as soldiers pass and marvel what
has become of those old Greek gods, for not only are the figures
gone, but the faces have also vanished — those straight, clean-
cut foreheads, the straight or aquiline noses, the keen, steady
eyes, the resolute lower jaws and shapely turned chins. What
subtle change has come upon the race ? Is it the work of
railroads ? Free Trade ? the Penny Press ? Democracy ?
Education ? All I know is that they are gone as the buffalo
are gone from the prairies, or the Red Man from the American
continent. I sometimes think that if these men were bred
amongst us to-day there need have been no suffragettes.

In 1861 and 1862 little was occurring in India to make resi-
dence there interesting to a soldier . Profound peace had followed
the close of the Mutiny. A great conflict had broken out in
North America ; but ocean telegraph cables were stiU unknown,
and the news of aU the desperate fighting upon the shores of
the Rappahannock and the Potomac and in the Shenandoah
Valley took a long while to get to Madras. Only in one sense,
and that a strange one, was this gigantic conflict brought
immediately home to us on the Carnatic coast. One hot season,
when Madras lay gasping for breath, there were no cooling
drinks to be had — the ice-ship from Boston to Madras had not
arrived. The Alabama was known to be out, and to her
account the fact of the ice-ship's being missing was at once laid.
The Southern cause had many supporters among us at the
time, but this supposed interference with our thirst by the
celebrated Confederate cruiser was a thing which had not
been reckoned with when the balance between the rival com-
batants had been struck in our community. Had not our
Mess rights just as pressing to us as those of Alabama or the
Carolinas to the Southerners, and had they not been violated in

THE CHOLERA 43

this matter ? So for a time, at least, there was pause in
debate among us, imtil one day the ice-ship was seen in the
oflfing, and the Federal cause went down again to zero like
the temperature in our tumblers.

We were seldom quite free from cholera at this time in the
fort at Madras. It seemed to strike at random among us.
Although the disease had been the scourge of India for more
than thirty years, little was known about its treatment, and
still less about the science of its cause. Certainly the con-
dition of the fort was at this time so bad as to make it un-
necessary to look for other sources of disease anywhere else.
At about 2 A.M. the outlet of the terrible main drain of Black
Town was opened, some five hundred yards to the north of the
fort, and a frightful flood of pent sewage was discharged into
the sea. The current set down shore, and thus this horrible
black mass was carried slowly dowTi along the shingle in
front of the quarters, filling the entire air of night with a
stench so penetrating that it caused the wretched inmates
of our barracks to start instantly into wakefulness, no matter
how sound might be the sleep into which nature, wearied by
the excessive heat of the day and early night, had at that
hour faUen.

Our colonel, a most estimable man and an excellent ofl&cer,
was one of the first to fall a victim to this scourge ; his own
child was also taken on the same day. Several of the finest
men went too. The blow fell without any warning. A strong
man went down all at once ; he was carried in a dhooley to
the hospital ; and aU was over in six or eight hours. Certainly
the ' finest appanage of the British Crown ' levies heavy toll
upon the Crown's subjects. ' The Pagoda Tree ' has its roots
in the graveyards of India's military cantonments.

In May 1863 I set out with two other officers to spend our
sixty days' ' privilege leave ' in visiting the western coast of
the peninsula. We were to cross by railway to Beypore,
and there, taking bullock bandies, proceed northward to
the falls of Gairsoppa, near Honore, a journey of two hundred
miles by road. The falls are said to be the most remarkable
in India, the River Sheranditty precipitating itself down the
face of the Western Ghauts in leaps of eight hundred and a
thousand feet. As the south-west monsoon would break in

44 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

June, the river was likely to be in full flood by the time we
reached Gairsoppa. Such was my plan, but when one travels
in a trio there is always a chance that you will have two to one
against you. We reached Salem in the evening, and, as the
train stopped there for the night, we made our beds on the
station platform. It was not a lively experience, as a cooHe
died of cholera close by us during the night. The heat was
excessive, and, bad as the fort at Madras had been, this was
worse. Next morning our train continued its western pro-
gress, and the evening found us at Palghaut. We got into the
travellers' bungalow at that place. Palghaut hes in the
bottom of a great rent or fissure in the Western Ghauts, which
gives easy and level access to the Malabar shore from the
Carnatic. On either side of a very long defile the mountains
rise steeply. Great forests of teak, blackwood, and green
undergrowths take the places of the burnt, cindery hiUs and
arid plains of Salem and Coimbatore.

A magnificent storm, the prelude to the opening of the
monsoon, burst upon Palghaut that night, and the forest
dripped rain for many hours ; but the morning broke bright,
and again our train resumed its slow march for Be3rpore, the
terminus on the Malabar coast. We got to Cahcut that even-
ing. This old town, the first spot in India reached by Vasco
da Gama, and described as being then a place of great magni-
ficence, is now poor and decayed, a straggling town hidden
in cocoa-nut palms, its old harbour silted up, a big sea breaking
ceaselessly upon its straight sandy shore. Here preparations
were to be made for the journey of two hundred miles along
the coast to Honore, but, alas for the permanence of our
projects, things fell out badly for us.

The senior member of our httle party was an old colonel
whose mihtary career of close upon thirty years had been spent
in India. He had an old native servant, ' Sam ' by name. Sam
liked his ease as much as did his master. That night on the
railway platform at Salem had checked the travelling ardour of
both master and man. Under date 10th May I find this entry
in my notebook, ' Calicut. Sam lost.' What really happened
I don't know. Sam turned up in the night, but his master's
spirits did not rise with the return of this ancient native. I
find the following entry in my notebook : — ' Calicut. Various

CONFLICTING PLANS 45

and conflicting plans,' and then : ' Scene, the Bungalow in
Calicut, time 10 p.m.

' H. Well, out of this infernal hole we must get, so let us decide
at once.

' M. (from his bed). Go anywhere. I don't care where.

' B. Why not Gairsoppa ? Mangalore is only one hundred miles
from here.

' H. I vote for Palghaut.

' M. I think Palghaut a capital place.

' H. We can stay there and eat our stores.

' B. Well, we can never show our faces again in the Mess if we
do that, that 's all I say.

' M. Oh, d the Mess !

' B. (anxious at all costs to save the ignominy of Palghaut).
What about Sissapara ?

' H. Of course, Sissapara.

'B. Or Cochin?

' H. Cochin. I always thought it an excellent place.

' M. (very sleepy). Palghaut, Palghaut.

* B. Let 's try to get bandies for Cannanore.

' After a short discussion this proposal is agreed to, and Sam and
other servants are despatched for bandy-wallahs. Silence until
arrival of bandy-wallahs. ]\L sleeps. Enter the wallahs and
servants.

' B. (through interpreter). How much charge to Cannanore ?

* Servant. Twelve rupees each band3\ (General consternation,
during which M. wakes.)

' H. We will give him ten rupees. (Animated dialogue ensues
in Telugu between servants and wallahs. Offer refused. Exit
wallahs. M. falls asleep murmuring " Palghaut.")

' Arrival of a second batch of wallahs, who after a protracted
discussion agree to take three masters to Caimanore for ten rupees
eight annas each master. An advance of eight rupees on each
bandy is now made, and general harmony appears to prevail.
This is shortly broken by fresh outbreak of Telugu tongue.

'Servant (interpreting). He says '•Bridges," Sa.

' Travellers, What bridges ?

' S. Five bridges, Sa, Master must pay five bridges,

* M. (from bed). It 's all rot,

' Exit second batch of bandy men. Debate adjourned until
next morning, when a last effort is to be made for Mangalore and
Honore en route to Gairsoppa, failing which all agree to turn
south for Cochin and Travancore.

46 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

* N.B. — The rocks I have to guard against are first a return to
Palghaut, there to consume our stores. Second, a retreat to PuUcat,
a place on the coast south of Madras, said to be famous for fish,
but not otherwise of any interest.'

The next entry is made at a place called Trichoor on the
15th May, so I had succeeded in getting my companions south
of the railway line which led back to Madras, and their heads
were now turned towards Cape Comorin. Trichoor was a quaint
old place; the Portuguese had been there, and the Dutch; then
had come Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan. Like aU the other
towns and villages on this coast, it lay deep in palm trees.
Here began that remarkable series of backwaters which run
south for nearly two hundred miles. Three lakes of salt water
are separated from the Arabian Sea by a thin ridge of the
cleanest and finest sand, sand such as might be put into an
hour-glass without further refinement. Upon these sands
which the sea has cast up grow beautiful groups of palm trees
and many flowering shrubs. The lakes widen out at intervals
into large expanses of open water, and at other places narrow
to channels of canal width, fringed with mango trees and spice
plants. Large water-lilies spread themselves from the shores,
and water-fowl of many kinds and plumage float or fly over
the sparkling waters. Our boat carried ten oars, and under
their strokes, and often with a sail to aid the rowers, we sped
along, and, travelling through the night, reached Cochin at
sunrise next morning.

Cochin was in its way the most mixed and variegated-looking
spot I saw in the East. Once everything in commerce, it had
now shrunken to next to nothing in the world of barter. The
Portuguese had had it, and the Dutch had taken it from them,
and made much of it in their peculiar ways of business. It
used to be said of old that the Portuguese began their colonial
settlements by building a church, that the Dutch ina.ugurated
theirs by building a fort, and that we commenced ours with
a public-house. In Cochin this triple transition can stiU be
seen. The old cathedral of da Gama or Albuquerque is turned
into a fort, and the public-house has been superimposed upon
both, but not even these several transitions had kept trade
true to its old centre. It had fled from Cochin. Eighty years
earlier the town had 'a harbour filled with ships, streets crowded

TO QUILLON 47

with merchants, and warehouses stored with goods from every
part of Europe and Asia ' ; now the cocoa palms hid the
desolation that followed the destruction of the fortifications
and public buildings by order of the British authorities in 1806.
One curious survival remained : there were still to be seen here
representatives of the old pol^^glot population which had once
made it famous. St. Thomas the Apostle is supposed to have
come here in the earliest days of Christianity, and two distinct
races of Jews are still here, the black and the red Jews. It
is strange, too, to find in this place two distinct bodies of
Christians, the descendants of the early Syrian proselytes
of St. Thomas, and those who acknowledge the jurisdiction
of Rome. These do not worship together, no more than do
the black and the red Jews.

But however desirous I might have been to make longer
stay in this museum of almost extinct Eastern races, one
dominating factor forced me forward. Another wild night
of rain and storm broke upon us as we sat in the verandah of
the travellers' bungalow. It was a grand sight to watch the
thunder-breeding clouds come whirling in from the Indian
Ocean, giving out rain deluges, lightnings, and storm gusts
as thej' swept over the roaring beach across the great lagoon
and up into the rocks and forests of the range of the Ghauts,
which rose immediately above the inland waters. But those
displays of fire and water had a fatal influence upon the spirits
of my companions. Again they proposed a retreat to Madras.
Fortunately, in a moment of exuberant expectation, when the
weather had been fine a day or two earlier, I had been made the
paymaster and treasurer of the expedition. I held the common
purse. There was no use in any further expostulation or
pronouncement as to what the Mess would say about the
ignoble polic}- of retirement to Palghaut, so I waited my
opportunity to answer, and remarked quietly that ' I would
crack on alone for Quillon at twelve o'clock next day, and
had engaged a large boat for the journey.' There was another
pause, several looks at the weather to windward, and then
came the final plunge. ' WeU, we won't break up the party.
Let 's all go together to Quillon.' So at noon next daj^ we
embarked in a fine boat with fourteen rowers, and favoured
by»a fair breeze we sped bravely through the water. The

48 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

day was glorious with sunshine, the water clear and smooth.
At first our course was through the middle of the great blue
lake, the shores of which in some places were not visible, and
in others just marked by a fringe of trees which seemed to be
growing out of water. After sunset the shores closed in
towards us again, and we pulled all night under a brilliant moon,
arriving at Quillon at nine next morning. A mile before making
the landing-place, we came on one of the many mimic promon-
tories rising from the water which has a stone monument built
upon it. It has a history. Many years ago a certain Colonel
Gordon was resident at Quillon. He was the owner of a large
Newfoundland dog. One morning Gordon was bathing in the
lake off this promontory ; the dog lay by his master's clothes on
the shore. Suddenly he began to bark in a most violent manner.
Gordon, unable to see any cause for the animal's excitement,
continued to swim in the deep water. The dog became more
violently excited, running down to the water's edge at one
particular point. Looking in the direction to which the
animal's attention was drawn, the swimmer thought that he
could perceive a circular ripple moving the otherwise smooth
surface of the lake. Making for the shore, he soon perceived
that the ripple was caused by some large body moving stealthily
under the water. He guessed at once the whole situation :
a very large crocodile was swimming well below the surface,
and making in liis direction. The huge reptile was already
partly between him and the shore. The dog knew it all.
Suddenly he ceased barking, plunged into the water, and
headed in an obUque line so as to intercept the moving ripple.
All at once he disappeared from the surface, dragged down by
the huge beast beneath. When the dog found that all his
efiforts to alarm his master were useless, he determined to give
his own life to save the man's, and so Colonel Gordon built
the monument on the rock above the scene, and planted the
casarina tree to shadow it.

We spent a couple of days in this remote but beautiful
cantonment of Quillon. Here under date 23rd May 1863
I find the following entry : — ' Dined with the officers 23rd
Madras Native Infantry in their delightful Mess. Heard
rumour of war with America.' What particular rumour of
war this referred to in the long civil strife I cannot now identify,

TRAVANCORE 49

but undoubtedly during those years of the early 'sixties there
were many times when the question of peace and war with the
Northern States hung in very delicate balance.

Our southward course now led to Trivandrum, the capital
of Travancore. This small native state, the most southern in
the peninsula of India, probably combined within its five
thousand square miles a larger diversity of scenery and race,
and a more extraordinary variety of social manners and customs,
than any other part of the world known to me.

It is a long and narrow strip of territory lying between an
impassable mountain range and a sea upon whose shore huge
breakers are almost always beating. The mountain barrier
rises to heights of seven thousand and eight thousand feet,
and, with the exception of two gaps or ghats, one at the north
end, Palghaut, the other at the south end near Cape Comorin,
it is unbroken and untrodden by man. Every animal from the
tiger to the tmiest monkey is in the forests of these mountains ;
the rivers and the backwaters are fuU of fish, birds are here
in vast varieties and of rainbow colours, and reptile Ufe is as
plentiful as heat, moisture, and underbush can make it ; but
above aU other life that of man is the most varied and interest-
ing. The Nairs and Tiers of old Hindoo origin are generally of
fine figure and handsome face, graceful in carriage, and of a
rich, light oUve complexion. A limited but very fierce race of
Mohammedans are found in the towns along the coast, Moplahs
by name ; these are descendants of old Arab traders settled
on the coast long before da Gama appeared from Europe.
High up in the wild glens and secluded ' sholahs ' of the moun-
tains are an extremely rude race, who dwell in little round bee-
hive-shaped huts and live upon wild animals, and cultivate
a few patches of the castor-oil plant. Of these people I shall
have occasion to speak later.

Out of a total population of more than one million souls
Travancore numbers some one hundred and fifty thousand
Christians of Syrian and Portuguese descent. Here, as
elsewhere in India, the dominating note of the land is life.
This great fervid sun, these sweeps of rain, this rich soil, these
limpid waters, have all combined to call forth in forest, plain,
island, lake, and shore an all-pervading sense of human, animal,
bird, fish, and insect existence. In these countries you cannot

D

50 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

get away from this fact of life ; it jostles you in the towns, it
roars at you in the forest, it flies and hums about you in the air,
it swims around jt^ou in the waters. These graceful Nair and
Tier women with their rich golden skins and black, silky tresses,
wading in the warm inland waters, or working in their island
gardens amid all the spice plants of the earth, are, no doubt,
the descendants of the people whom Camoens saw on this
coast, and sighed after, and wrote about in the dread days of
misfortune and captivity.

Continuing our southern course from Quillon, we reached
the end of the greater or northern backwater, and crossed on
foot a low range of hills separating it from a shorter lake which
runs to Trivandrum, the capital. At sunset we were on the
height of land between the two long reaches of water ; to the
right as we marched was a magnificent ocean prospect. The
sun had burst forth from masses of cloud on the horizon, and
in rich folds of hiU and forest the land lay green and golden in
the level rays, backed by the glorious Ghauts, tree-covered
to their summits. Looking back we saw for many a winding
mile the water track we had followed from Trichoor. A little
distance to the westward of our road lay the old city of Anjengo,
once a place of importance in the early Portuguese trade.
Some forty years after this evening of glorious sunset views,
I read in St. Helena the following entry in the old island
records : —

'June 21th, 1757. — I, Mr. Scott, Your Honour's Resident at
Anjengo, transported to this island in the Clintoji and Hector ten
Malabar men who it seems were officers to the King of Travancore,
to serve you as slaves here, one of which died on the passage.
The other nine were landed and clothed. A few days after they
were sent into the country five of them hanged themselves, and one
of the remaining four has since died. The other three threaten to
destroy themselves if they are put to any kind of work.'

Well done the British trader as a missionary of civilisation !
This sample of his pecuHar methods occurred a hundred years
prior to my visit to Travancore, but in the fifty years which
have since elapsed I have seen enough of our missionary
trader to make me think that he might be still at his old
methods of civilisation, if there had been no French Revolution
to give him pause in his calculations. The ' Records ' from which

A BIT OF FORGOTTEN HISTORY 51

the above extract is taken contain many reverential observa-
tions on humanity in general and the Bible in particular.

The lake which lay south of this ridge between the two
backwaters carried us into Trivandrum, the capital. Here,
after a couple of days' delay, we quitted this delightful mode
of water transport, and held our way by road towards Cape
Comorin.

The monsoon had not yet broken, the sun was straight over
our heads, and the heat sufficiently great to make night or early
morning travel preferable to the march by day. The country
was rich and undulating, mountains grand and bold to our
left, and to our right the sounding Indian Ocean. ' How,' I
find myself asking in my notebook, ' has it happened that the
All-grasping Company kept their hands from this fertile pro-
vince ? True, they got eight lakhs out of it, and they kept in
their hands the civil and mihtary power. I suppose the reason
was that Hyder Ali never conquered Travancore, for we seem
to have usurped aU his usurpations as a matter of course.'

On the second day from Trivandrum we reached a quaint old
place called Oodagherry. A crumbling fort built round the
base of a steep rocky hill, and half covered with jungle growth,
gave us shelter in one of its bastions, upon which the travellers'
bungalow (that last remnant of the old regal hospitality of
India) had been built. A few miles south-east of this spot
began the Aroombooli Pass in the mountains, the southern gate-
way through the Ghauts. It was through this gate that the
British column marched in 1809 to the conquest of Travancore,
and here at Oodagherry the last effort of resistance was made
by the Travancoreans. My own corps, the 69th Regiment,
had formed the principal European portion of this force. We
found the tradition of the old conflict still living, and some old
natives, having scraped away the tangled foliage below our
bastion-bungalow, showed us the graves of Europeans who
had fallen in fight or died of disease at this place ; but the
rains of fifty years had rendered the names upon the grave-
stones quite illegible.

Here, close to Cape Comorin, and one thousand five hundred
miles northward and east and west, from Orissa to the Arabian
Sea, they lie in countless graves, these old, forgotten, heroic
soldiers, unthanked and unthought of by the millions to whom
their deaths gave untold riches and unequalled empire.

CHAPTER IV

Down to Cape Comorin, and back to Madras. The scene of a
bygone massacre. Starting for England. St. Helena.

Before continuing our journey to Cape Comorin our little
party broke up, and two of us turned aside into the Ghauts
to seek for sambhur and bison in these wonderful forests
which had so long flanked our line of march on the eastward,
revealmg, when the sunset Hght struck fuU mto their countless
glens and ' sholahs,' innumerable parks and game preserves.
The spot selected for our incursion was caUed the Ashamboo
Vallej^ at the extreme southern end of the range of Ghauts
and only a few miles north of Cape Comorm. In this glen a
couple of gentlemen of the London Missionary Society had
built themselves two small bungalows for retreat in the hot
season at a height of between five and six thousand feet above
sea-level. Very steep and rough, a narrow pathway wound
among rocks and jungle from the lower level, and after two
or three hours of heavy toil we gained the entrance to the
valley. It was a wild and picturesque spot, looking right down
upon the southern pomt of India. Higher mountains enclosed
the glen on three sides, but to the south the eye ranged over
the immense expanse of ocean which surrounds the cape.
Two little thatched cottages stood on a rising ground some
three or four hundied yards from the entrance gap in the
hills ; through this gap the gathered waters of the glen plunged
down the mountain-side. The lower slopes of the valley were
free of forest and grass-covered ; the higher ridges were seamed
with belts of deep green forest — ' sholahs,' as they were
called.

A missionary in Nagracoil, at the foot of the mountain, had
kindly given us the key of his mountain cottage, so we marched
straight to it. The house had not been occupied for many
months, and the lock was rusty and difficult to open ; but at

. 52

ON THE TRACK OF THE BISON 53

last entrance was effected, and then a strange sight met the
first man that went m. Underneath a charpoy, or coir bed-
stead, in one corner of the little room, a large brown mass was
seen, like a piece of old bedding folded and put away. The
man came running out, exclaiming that there was a very big
serpent lying coiled under the empty bedstead. We now got
a side window open to give us more light, and then it could
be easily perceived that the bundle was a huge snake lying in
a semi-comatose state. It was not easy to make out where
his head was and where his tail, but I took the bulkiest part
of the coil for aim, and gave him a bullet, at ten feet distance,
full mto the middle of it. Then a great upheaval and dis-
entanglement began, during which I retreated to the door to
await developments, for with the smoke and the rumpus one
could not tell what the next move of the reptile would be.
When the thick smoke cleared out of the little room our
sleeping python was quiet ; the ball had broken his body in
halves at its thickest part. He was about twelve feet in
length, and thick as a man's leg. A big figure 8 repeated itself
along his back m a sort of purple tint upon a brown back-
ground. He had done us one signal service : there was not a
rat in the bungalow.

Next morning we were out before sunrise. We first crossed
a steep ridge called ' Bison Point,' and descended into another
valley ; again we climbed a hiU, and, crossing another glen,
reached at noon a place called by our guide ' The Hillmen's
Valley.' Here some half a dozen httle black men were collected
out of about the same number of little beehive huts. These
strange dwarf-like people were the first and last of their kind
I met in India. They were all much under five feet in height,
very black in colour, and almost naked. Their instinctive
knowledge of the habits of wild animals, and their power of
following a trail across all kinds and conditions of ground, were
equalled by their noiseless and yet rapid methods of moving
through dense jungle.

W^ith these men we now plunged into some very thick
forests, and soon separated. I was following my particular
little man through this jungle, when suddenly he stopped his
rapid steps and pointed to some object in advance and slightly
to the left of where he stood. A step brought me beside him.

54 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Following his ' point/ I could discern, at a distance of about
twenty or thirty paces, a huge head that was looking at us
over and through some lower jungle. It was a bison. I
carried a short rifle which loaded at the breech in some strange
fashion long ago obsolete. I aimed at the big head that was
looking at us, but before I could puU the trigger the beast
threw himself half round from us. Dropping the muzzle
below where I thought must be the level of his shoulder, I
fired. There was a great crash, and I heard and saw no more.
Fearing the beast was off down the slope, I rushed forward,
my black friend remaining where he was. On his side lay the
bison, struggling hard to get on his legs again. I fired at
twelve feet from him two more shots into his huge carcass,
neither of which seemed to have any effect ; but the first wound
was mortal, and after a last struggle he laj'' still. AU the hill-
men now came together, and with their keen knives the big
head was severed from the body, poles were cut, and we all
marched back, bringing the head in triumph to the hut. The
bison was one of the largest the little hunters had ever seen.
He measured eighteen hands at the shoulder, and his girth
was ten feet. We slept that night in a sort of porch belonging
to the largest of the beehives, and the little men, and the little
women, and their yet smaller children, were soon inside their
hives.

After nine days of this wild life, but with no sport to equal
that first day's, we said farewell to our good friend Mr. Cox,
who was about to attempt coffee-planting in Ashamboo ; and
descending again to the low country pursued our route to
Cape Comorin. The heat was now great, and felt particularly
trying to us after the cool days and really cold nights of the
upper mountains. The country was now covered with old
forts and ruined temples. At night, when it became too dark
for the buUocks to make their way, we would tie up beside some
old temple and sleep until day came, lulled by the sea winds
whistling through the broken masonry and dilapidated figures
of Vishnu or Parasu Rama. The last-named Brahminical deity
was the favourite god of the Travancoreans ; for they say that
it was he who created this country by hurling his axe from
the summit of the Ghauts into the ocean, which then came to
the foot of the mountains, and that the waters, receding from

TO TUTICORIN 55

the space over which the weapon sped, left bare the rich region
of this province.

Early on the morning of 16th June we reached the cape.
Here India slanted quietly into the sea, in gently sloping shores
upon which the waves had washed up three distinct kinds and
colours of sand — puce, garnet, and black. An old bungalow
stood at the extreme point, facing south, and three big rounded
granite rocks marked the southmost bit of land. The bunga-
low was very large ; it had been built by a former resident at
Trivandrum, and even at this hot time of the year was cooled
and freshened by winds that were always from the waves.

From this point our bullocks had their heads turned north-
east to Tuticorin, a port on the coast of Tinnavellj^ facing
Ceylon. Slowly they dragged us through the Aroomboli Pass,
and out once more into the blinding levels eastward of the
Ghauts. I look over the old notebook, and read : —

' At length we are turned towards Madras. I liked Comorin
much ; wild, secluded, and scarcely ever visited. What a place for
study ! The quaint old house with the roar of the surf echoing
through its lofty rooms, and the sea winds whistling round the
gables, making even noonday, dreamy. Halted for the night six
miles from the cape, on the frontier.'

Then we pushed on through Tinnavellj% by Palamcottah,
and a dozen other places ending with ' ary ' or ' gully,' and
late on the 24th reached Tuticorin, after having covered in
the last stage thirty- three miles in twenty-six hours. The
heat was very great during those seven days' travel, and the
country scorched and sandy, and with many salt marshes.
The day following our arrival at Tuticorin is marked, ' Sick
and seedy all day.' It was really a day of intense illness. The
Carnatic climate had begun to tell upon me, and for some
time past a recurring day of horrible sickness came upon me
at intervals of about a month. The doctors could not make
out what it was, and as it usually happened that there was a
fuU moon when these violent night attacks occurred, I had
begun to think the moon was in some way answerable for
them.

At Tuticorin we hired a native boat called a ' dhoney,' and
set sail through the Gulf of Manaar for Madras, following the

56 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

general line of the coast northward, anchormg at sunset, and
gomg on at sunrise next day.

It was a new experience of Indian life, and therefore of great
interest, despite the general condition of discomfort that
necessarily pervaded it. The ' dhoney ' was of about twenty
tons burden ; the crew — a whole family and a couple of
followers — was Mohammedan. My companion and myself
had a small after-hold for our mattresses, and an equally
small space on deck to sit in during the day. A big lateen
sail towered above and gave us shelter from the sun ; forward
of the sail the crew, of all ages, was huddled together on jute
bales. The craft itself was old, and its planks were simply held
together by coir ropes and stitches.

On the 28th June we passed through Adam's Bridge and
anchored at Paambaun. Many islands were scattered about
these narrow seas between India and Ceylon. The coasting
trade was large, and native craft were numerous. Passing
through Palk's Straits on the 29th, our ' dhoney ' was aU but
run down by a two-masted native vessel of ten times our
tonnage. I had seen under the lateen sail this big craft coming
towards us more than a mile away, and had pointed her out
to our ' Ries,' for the courses on which we were both running
must bring us close together. Then the sail had intervened,
and I ceased to watch. All at once there was wild shouting
from our crew before the mast, and a more distant bellowing
from the people on the brig. How we scraped by each other
I don't know ; but amid aU the bellowing and gesticulation
the big craft brushed past us a few feet distant on the starboard
side, our jomt speeds giving a rate of perhaps twenty mUes an
hour.

On the 30th we passed the tall lighthouse on Point Calymere
at noon, were off Negapatam at three, and anchored at Carrical
at sunset just as the tricolor was being hauled down from the
French flagstaff. Then to Pondicherry for one day on shore,
and to Madras on the evening of 4th Jul3^ It had been well
timed. Our sixty days' leave would expire next morning.
We had travelled some twelve hundred miles by rail, boat,
bullock, bandy, dhoney, and on foot in these fifty-nine days.

At Madras we found the orders for home had arrived ; we
were to sail in the following February.

A VISIT TO VELLORE 57

But there was one spot in the Camatio which I had not yet
seen, although it had been of particular interest to me since
I had read the early records of my regiment as they were told
in a large folio MS. volume in our Orderly Room. This spot
was Vellore, a fortress and town lying some eighty miles to
the west of Madras. Not even in the cindery plains of the
Carnatic is there to be found a place of more intense heat ;
red rocky hills surround it, the radiation from which makes
the night almost as fevered as the day. In the splendid fort
built by early Mohammedan conquerors of the Carnatic four
companies of the 69th Regiment, together with nearly all their
officers and families, were shot down one hot night in July
1806 by the native troops who were in garrison with them.
The mutiny of Vellore had been a very notable occurrence
in its day ; it was now entirely forgotten. AU the greater
reason for going to Vellore,

I arrived there in the end of Jul}-, when it was about as hot
as the sun and the hills could bake or make it. The fort, a
magnificent structure of early Moslem work, stands intact
and entire, as sound as the day it was buUt, and it will pro-
bably remain in that condition for another thousand years.
The immense ditch is hewn out of soUd rock, and the walls
and bastions are of great square stones quarried from the ditch.
Almost in the centre of the large square which is enclosed by
these massive walls, a very lofty Hindoo pagoda, covered with
sculptures and carvmgs of Khrislma and Rama and his monkey
armies, lifts its head.

The object of my visit was to see this scene of a bygone
massacre, and the graveyard where the bones of so many old
soldiers of my regiment had been laid at rest. Strangely
enough, I found in the fort a depot of old European pensioners
of the Indian army, and to their little huts within the fort
I first went. Men were there whose service dated back to
earlier years than even 1806, and among them there was a
survivor of the battle of the Nile, the only one I ever met.
He had been a boy on board a ship in Nelson's fleet in that
celebrated fight, and had afterwards served in the Company's
service for many years. He was very old and very deaf ; but
his brain was still going. * What was it like ? ' I roared into
his better ear. ' What was it like ? ' he answered, gaining a

58 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

little time for his reply before he uttered it. * Well, it was like
the sound of the water-wheel of a big mill/ That was aU I
could get from him.

Other old pensioners were tried as to the mutiny with
greater success. Two or three of them knew from hearsay
all the sights of that memorable night and morning at VeUore
in July 1806. The old barracks through the windows of which
the mutineers had fired on our men as they were lying
asleep in their cots ; the rampart and bastion to which the
survivors had escaped, and which they held until the arrival
of the gallant Gillespie from Arcot at the head of his avenging
cavalry; the flagstaff, from the summit of which the green flag of
Mysore was torn down, under a murderous fire, by two splendid
soldiers of the 69th ; the spot on the ramparts over the great
gateway from which Sergeant Brady first descried the hero
GUlespie riding far in advance of his leading squadron ; the
gate blown in by the fire of ten galloper guns of the King's 19th
Dragoons — aU these places we visited ; and finally we
reached the graveyard where, shaded by an old decaying tree,
stood the square mound of brick and mortar, without date or
inscription, and broken with rents, through which wild plants
grew luxuriantly, marking the ground where so many of the
old regiment rested.

It was late at night when I got back to Madras. A sub-
scription was soon set on foot, the Government of Madras
helped with a grant, and six months later, when the regiment
embarked for England, they left a fitting monument in the
graveyard at Vellore to the memory of the gallant men who
lay there.

I was sorry then to leave India, and I am sorry stiU that I
did not labour more when I was there to know better its people
and their history. India is a bad school for the young soldier
in many of its aspects. There are some of our race to whom
contact with the native spells retrogression ; there are others
to whom this old civilisation, these vast edifices of power
decayed, and wealth squandered, and religion degenerated,
teach lessons which are not to be found in the school-books.
Cradle of aU things ! Tomb of aU things ! Gorgeous, starved,
degraded, defiled, debauched, mysterious East ! I wish that I
had studied you more deeply when I dwelt with you. And yet

SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 59

I can well believe that we of the old army, snipe shooting, and
bison hunting, and serving and even romping with the people,
knew more of them and their ways than did our rich cousins
of the Civil Service. The gulf between the European fighting
man and the Indian is shallower than that which divides the
ruling man from the ruled man. I used to meet in my wander-
ings man}' highly paid civilians — commissioners, collectors,
judges, and all their deputies of so many degrees ; but now,
looking back upon it all, I think that the men who impressed
me most favourably in the Civil Service were those who had
begun their careers in the army, and had subsequently passed
from military life to civil administration. Wherever the
Mohammedan is found, the love of arms inherent in his nature
will make him regard the man who carries them in a sense
different from that in which he regards a purely civiUan
superior. The Asiatic fighting man quickly sees through the
* superior person ' of our time. It is Colonel Newcome and the
Collector of Boggly WaUah over again ; and it will remain so
to the end of the chapter, even though the colonel should
always die in a Cliarterhouse Hospital.

I am not quite sure that our new superior person, governor
or collector, is a better ruler than the old-type civilian who was
still to be found in the out-stations in my time in India.

Bungay Smith was a type. He possessed one marked
social accomplishment, and to this it was said that he owed
his fortune in the Civil Service. He could buzz like a
bumble-bee. One evening at a reception in Government
House somebody mentioned to the governor-general the
fact of Bungay's accomplishment. By special desire he was
requested to give a performance in the role of the bumble-
bee, a screen being provided to render the performance less
arduous. From behind that screen Bungay poured forth such
variations of buzzing that the company were delighted beyond
the measure of words. He buzzed as the bee approaching the
flower ; he buzzed as the bee leaving the flower ; he buzzed as
the bee who has struck against your hat and become violently
irritated and enraged at his own stupidity ; and he buzzed
as the bee dreamily dozing amid the scents of linden trees.
From that moment his success was assured. He went up
country to a collectorship, which unfortunately was in a part

60 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of India where tigers were numerous. From a love of nature
in the humbler lives of the striped bumble, he passed to the
higher levels of striped animal life. He would hunt the tiger.
A collector finds many willing hands to aid him in compassing
his wishes. It was soon arranged that a ' machan,' or stage,
should be erected at some spot frequented by the lord of the
Indian jungle. Upon this stage Bungay was to take his seat,
a bait or lure for the tiger was to be fastened underneath, and
the remainder of the proceeding would, it was said, be almost
automatic : the tiger would come to eat the bait, Bungay had
only to discharge bullets down upon him from his ' machan,'
and the desired end would be achieved. The whole arrange-
ment fulfilled all the conditions known as * a dead certainty.'

The ' machan ' consisted of a sort of strong double step-
ladder, having a stage at top upon which Bungay with his
head shikaree was to be seated. Everything promised well.
Before darkness closed over the forest Bungay and his shi-
karee were in position ; a small buffalo calf was tied to a
stake underneath the structure. Night and silence followed.
The tiger was now the only actor wanting in the piece, and he
had to appear under the staging, and not on it. It was here
that the hitch came in.

It was late when he appeared, with the stealth and caution
common to his kind. There was something suspicious about
this buffalo calf, and what was the meaning of this curious
wooden pyramidal thing placed straddling its legs over the
jungle pathway ? It required examination. He approached
the scene. His back had been giving him trouble in the matter
of mange ; this sloping arrangement of wood offered a con-
venient means of getting on even terms with some parts of his
own person which had previously defied his attempts to scratch
them. AU at once a thing never calculated upon by tiger or
collector happened ; there was a crash, a roar, a going off of
firearms, the thud of falling weights ; full upon the tiger's back
fell Bungay straddle-legs. Away went the tiger, scared as he
had never been scared before ; tight to the tiger clung Bungay,
roaring for all he was worth ; shikarees descended from
neighbouring trees, firing promiscuously in all directions ; a
spring from the tiger, wilder than anything he had yet achieved,
flung Bungaj'^ into the jungle, from whence his roars served

START FOR HOME 61

to guide his followers to the rescue of their chief. He was taken
back to his palace practically unhurt, but with nerves so
shaken that severe mental complications ensued. He imagined
himself a tiger, and, as before he had hummed as a bee, he
now broke forth in the roars of a tiger. After a period of
prolonged treatment these fits of imagination lessened in
severity, and the intervals between them grew longer. But
they never quite left him, and a powerful native servant always
accompanied him carrying some yards of strong light rope,
which, upon a warning note sounded by Bungay, he had
orders to tie quickly round his master's arms and legs, for
unfortunately, under the stress of the delusions, he felt impelled
at times to act the part, as weU as to utter it.

There was a favourite story told in the club at Madras of
how upon one occasion when Bungay was proceeding at night
in his gharry along the Mount Road, the tiger delusion sud-
denly came upon him as they approached the long bridge over
the Adyar River. Something had gone wrong with the rope,
and before the servant could reach his master the fit was fully
developed. The servant turned and fled ; the master pursued ;
down they went into the dry bed of the wide river ; from arch
to arch the chase went on ; the servant hid himself behind a
buttress ; Bungay growled on aU-fours till he found him ; then
the sohtudes rang with the roar of the king of the forest, as in
and out of the arches the master followed the man. I have
forgotten how this strange rendermg of the poet's ' Hound of
Heaven ' ended.

In the month of February 1864 the 69th Regiment, or what
was left of it, embarked for England in two vessels of the
famous line of ' cHpper ' ships owned by Messrs. Green of
London.

The right wing of the regiment sailed on the 10th February.
There were ten days between the sailing of the two vessels, the
Trafalgar and the Lord Warden. Both were noted sailers,
and there was much excitement as to which of them would do
the thirteen or fourteen thousand miles in the quickest time.
Both were to caU at St. Helena, and then to make for Ply-
mouth. I was with the left wing of the regiment in the Lord
Warden.

It is interesting to compare these old logs of sailing ships

62 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

with the ' runs ' made by liners to-day. We kept a journal
on board — the Homeward Bound by name — and in its
pages I find the record : —

* In the first fortnight after leaving India we averaged only 80
miles a day ; in the second fortnight the average was 124 miles ;
the third fortnight saw us out of the tropics and into the
latitudes of strong winds, and our average increased to 184 miles ;
then when the stormy seas of the Cape of Good Hope were entered
we ran up to 197 miles in twenty-four hours ; finally we attained
in the run from St. Helena northwards an average of 212 miles,
and covered in one day 320 miles between the Azores and the
Lizard.'

The only event in the long three months that is worth
remembering is a short stay of two days at St. Helena — 15th
and 16th April ; but they were days so steeped in thoughts of
glory and of grief that if I lived for a thousand years they
would live with me. Our ship had been standing off the
island in the late night, and long before dawn I was on deck
to catch the first glimpse of the rock. It came in the west
as the stars were going out in the east. Nothing like this
black berg is elsewhere in the world. Nothing so lonely, so
gaunt, so steep, so age-riven, so thunderous with the sound
of seas, so sorrowful in the wail of the winds, so filled with the
sense of blank distance, so sombre in desolation. Beranger
said that where some older earth had been ruined in the great
conflict which the powers of Good and Evil had waged, the
rock of St. Helena had been left at the special prayer of the
vanquished spirits of Evil as a memento of their having been
once supreme upon earth. And he makes the Almighty ask
the reason for the request thus made.

' I ask this boon," answers the spirit, ' in order that one day
in a far-distant age of this new world there may be brought to
that dark ocean rock a mortal all but godlike in his genius,
who shall undergo there upon that black altar a lingering death
at the hands of evil men.'

I got on shore at the earliest possible hour, and was soon
riding up the steep road that led from Jamestown to the tomb
and to Longwood. At St. Helena one quickly masters the
chapter of St. Helena. These gigantic rock walls, these im-

AT LONGWOOD 63

passable precipices, and all this environment of charred deso-
lation in the midst of which the miserable farmhouse is perched,
gamit and alone, tell in the space of a three-mile ride the entire
story of the captivity. When the summit level above the
tomb is reached at Hutt's Gate, the ' altar ' craved of the
Demon lies outspread before the traveller, and the word
' prison ' is read in gigantic characters on sea and sky, on peak
and precipice of that grey, gloomy circumference, in the centre
of which is Longwood. Here all the names known in the
history of these five or six years of suffering cease to have a,ny
individual meaning, ' Rupert's,' ' Deadwood,' ' Longwood,'

* the Flagstaff,' ' the Bam,' ' the Valley of Silence,' disappear,
and there only remains the all-pervading sense of an inner
prison, surrounded by even more impassable boundaries of lava,
chasm, and rock wall than the ocean and the outer sea face of
the island had already provided.

I had stood by the tomb, had seen the house, and looked
long on the features of the marble bust within the black-railed
space which marks the spot where the Mttle camp death-
bedstead stood on the 5th May 1821 ; and now it was time to
leave Longwood. Perhaps it was because one had asked the
French sergeant who was in charge questions which he was not
able to answer, or perhaps from some other reason, but as I
was about to depart he volunteered the mformation that there
was still living, at only a little distance from Longwood House,
an old soldier who had been on the island during the captivity.

' Monsieur might care to see him ? '

' Yes, very much.'

' He lives close by, monsieur, in a little hut, there below the
dip of the ridge between us and the gate of Longwood.'

Five minutes later I was at the hut. An old man was at
spade-work in a little garden.

' Well, old friend, they tell me you were here in Bonaparte's
time,' I say, speaking very loud, for he is deaf. ' Can you tell
me anything about him ? '

He looks up from his work, leans on his spade handle, and
says nothing, I put the question again in a louder voice.

' Is it Bony ye mane ? ' he says, in an accent which, not-
withstanding a lapse of forty or fifty years, still tells of Ireland,

* To be shurc I remember him, and so I ought, for manj' the

64 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

day and the night I mounted guard over him, and stood sentry
beyond the gum trees there by the house/

* How long have you been here ? ' I ask.

' Fifty years come October next,' he says. ' I came out with
the 53rd Regiment, and when it left to go to India I exchanged
into the 66th, and I married and settled here. Did ye ever
hear tell of SUgo ? ' he went on.

' Yes, often."

' WeU, that was my country. I wonder now how it 's
getting on, and if there 's any of my people living.'

So anxious was I to follow the thread of the guard and
sentry memory that I could at the moment have consigned
Sligo to the deepest bottom of its own bogs ; but it was wiser
to dissemble a little, so after a few words about Sligo I got
the old fellow's memory back again to Longwood, the guards,
the sentries, and the old times of the captivity ; and as a
starting-point I asked him where the line of sentries used
to be placed by day and by night.

' The sintries is it ? ' he says. ' There 's the field over where
the sheep are grazing ; that 's where the big camp stood. By
day the sintries were kept below the ridge, along the far side
of the valley ' (pointing across the depths of Fisher's Ravine),
' and by night they were drawn in, and they closed up around
the house.'

' Did you ever see the Emperor ? '

' Who ? '

' Bonaparte.'

' Yes, often. I used to see him of times working m the
garden at the house, or throwing crumbs to the fish in the pond
near the door. When he got too bad to walk out in the garden,
I used to see him sometimes in the house ; for I was told off to
look after the Chinamen that were employed there, and to
see that they fetched up the water every day from the spring
down by Torbutts, where the tomb is now.'

Then we spoke of the house and the dwarf gum trees that
grew on the level ground just above his cabin.

' There were more of them there in them days,' he said,
' but the storm that blew the night before he died — the awfullest
wind that was ever on the island — ^knocked most of them down.'

Then, after some other talk about St. Helena, his mind

WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS 65

wandered ofE again to Sligo ; and he soon ceased speaking.
The old man's brain was tired.

I could have remained a long while there, but it would not
have been of any use. This curious, old, time-rusted link in
the chain between past and present, dressed in a soldier's
tattered coat, had said his say ; and the well of his memory
had run dry. What things had these old eyes looked at !
Old friend, good-bye.

I mounted and rode away, thinking over the words, ' closed
up around the house.' All these vast precipices, from the edges
of which the passer-by recoils in instinctive horror ; these
gloomy rampart rocks ; all these camps of soldiers — one there
at Deadwood, one hundred j^ards in front of the farmhouse ;
another at Hutt's Gate, where the sawback ridge begins which
just suffices in its width at the top to carry the road on to
Longwood between the prodigious rents in the earth plunging
down, one thousand feet in depth, below the narrow roadway ;
these were not wards and guards and barriers sufficient, placed
though they were with thousands of leagues between them
and the nearest land, but the Une of sentries must ' close up
at sunset ' around the walls of the miserable house itself.

The news that reached us at St. Helena was full of interest.
The Civil War in America seemed to be drawing to a close ;
but a Kttle speck of conflict was showing in Northern Europe.
Two great Powers had invaded little Denmark. To us poor
homeward-bound soldiers, anxious for service, it seemed that
this wanton and cowardly proceeding must produce the
general war which some of us, at least, wished for. I find in
the pages of our little sea journal some lines entitled ' War's
Whisper,' the concluding verse of which ran thus : —

'Ho ! babblers of "peace," ye who boasted in pride
That the sword in its scabbard for ever was tied !
Did ye hear that low murmur waft over the main
Its tidings of battle in the land of the Dane 1 '

But alas for poetic flight and bellicose imaginations ! No
sword leaped from scabbard either in France or England, and
the massacre of Diippel passed unnoticed by either of the
Powers whose one great chance in modem history it was.
These things do not happen twice. Louis Napoleon might

£

66 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

easily have saved Sedan and Paris had he then struck for the
Dane, and there would, in all human probability, have been no
' Dreadnought ' scare to-day had there been a single soldier-
statesman m England in that year 1864.

There was no Suez Canal in 1864, and the roadstead at
St. Helena had always plenty of shipping in it, vessels taking
in food and water on their homeward route from India and
China. At the time of our visit it held other craft — American
whalers from the Antarctic hiding from the Alabama, which
was still at work of destruction in various seas. I went on
board one of these whalers. She was three months out from
Maine ; her captain and crew in beards and clothes like so
many Robinson Crusoes. It was early morning. The captain
insisted upon my having breakfast with him — a black bottle
of terrible spirit and a plate of hard-tack biscuits, on a table
that had been lubricated with blubber. It was sufficient.

Our sister ship, the Trafalgar, conveying the right wing of
the regiment, had gained a week upon us in the run from
Madras to St. Helena. She had left the island with a clear
seventeen days' start. The race home now seemed hopeless
for us.

We left St. Helena with the south-east trade blowmg strong,
and it bowled us along before it durmg the next sixteen days.
No halt from calms on the Line ; the northern tropic proved
equally propitious, and the ' roaring forties ' sent us flying along
from stormy Corvo to the Cornish coast in glorious style.
On 21st May we anchored at Plymouth, ninety days out from
Madras. An hour later a full-rigged ship was visible on the
horizon from beyond the Eddystone Lighthouse. Our captain,
who had only one eye (but, like Nelson's, it was a very good
one) laid his glass upon the distant vessel. ' It 's the Trafalgar,'
he said ; and so it was. That three hundred and twenty mile
day on the 17th had done its work ; we had gained some
seventeen days upon our sister ship in the run from St. Helena.

When we entered the Channel a thing foretold by the ship's
officers happened. We carried some seventy or eighty invalid
soldiers from India, the wrecks of the Carnatic climate. ' You
wiU see many of these men die when we get near the
English coast,' the officers and doctor used to say. So it fell
out. We buried several of these poor feUows almost in sight

ENGLAND AGAIN 67

of the Lizard. For them the ' chops of the Channel ' had a
sinister meaning.

On 22nd May the two sisters, now in companj'^, sailed before
a delightful westerly breeze along the coasts of Devon, Dorset,
and Hampshire to Portsmouth. Very fresh and beautiful it
all looked ; hawthorn blossom holding out welcome to us ;
scents of spring from the shores, and May-green on the hills
for the rest and refreshment of our sun-seared eyes. To
understand all the loveliness of an English spring you should
spend a few summers in the Camatic.

CHAPTER V

Aldershot. Visit to the Belgian battlefields. Afterthoughts on Waterloo.

We were stationed at Gosport after arrival, and then we went
to Aldershot. These south of England town garrisons made
bad stations for soldiers lately arrived from abroad ; that
harpy the Jew jeweller, and the betting or gambling man
have there a wide field for the exercise of their various greeds,
wiles, and villanies. Before we were a year at home half of
our officers were in debt, and many of them had to exchange or
leave the service.

After a short leave of absence at home, I was sent with a
party of men to Hythe to learn out of books that theory of
musketry in the practice of which I was already no mean
proficient. But Hythe was no exception to the rule which I
have found existmg in every part of the world — namely, that
a man will find something of interest, something that is worth
knowmg or seeing, no matter what the spot may be on the
earth's surface where fortune has cast him.

Visiting Dover one day, I turned into the Ship Hotel for
lunch. At a table in one corner of the public room four men
were sitting. The waiter informed me that they were officers
of the American Federal cruiser Kearsarge, which was then
lying in the harbour. Over at Calais lay also in harbour, and
afraid to stir from it, the Confederate cruiser Alabama. The
Federal agent in Calais kept the captam of the Kearsarge
constantly informed of the doings of his rival. The Kearsarge
lay in Dover with steam always up. The truth was, the
Alabama's game was up, unless some extraordinary freak of
fortune should again befriend her, for the Kearsarge had ' the
legs of her,' and whether the brave Semmes headed out into
the North Sea, or went down Channel, he must be overhauled
by his enemy.

68

ALDERSHOT IN 1865 69

Suddenly the door of the coffee-room opened, and four
gentlemen, dressed in rather peculiar suits of ' mufti,' entered
the room. They stopped short, stared hard at the occupants
of the table in the corner, turned abruptly round, and left the
room. They were officers of the Alahama, who had crossed
from Calais by the mail-boat that mornmg, probably to have
a look at their enemy from the pier. A couple of weeks later
the Confederate slipped out from Calais at night, and with
something of a start made her way down Channel ; but the
Kearsarge was soon upon her tracks.

Cherbourg afforded a last refuge for the little warship whose
career in all the oceans, and even in the comers of seas, had
cost the Northern States such enormous loss. When the time
limit was up she had to put to sea. A few miles off Cherbourg
the two cruisers met for the first and last time. It was all over
with the Alabama in an hour. Semmes and his crew were
picked up by an English steam yacht — I have forgotten her
name — but curiously enough she had steamed close alongside
for many miles, a month or two earlier, when the two clipper
ships were racing each other along the south coast of England
from Plymouth to Dartmouth.

Early in 1865 we moved to Aldershot, then in a very different
condition from what it is to-day. Great expanses of sand
stretched from beyond the Long Valley up to the doors of the
wretched huts in which we were housed. All the verdure and
foliage which chiefly owe their origin to the labours of Colonel
Laffan of the Engineers were then unknown, and when a south-
west wind blew one might have imagined that Caesar's Camp
was a koppje m the Sahara.

But the thing that made the Aldershot of 1865 a place of
delight for memory to recall was the individuality of the
military characters one met there. Not one solitary vestige
of these old vanished heroes can now be found in our army.
Truly can it be said that the entire military type and bearing
of that time is gone, ' lock, stock, and barrel.' The stock still
clung to the soldier's neck, the lock and barrel were of the
old percussion muzzle-loading model ; ' fire-lock ' it was still
called by the older drill sergeants.

Our regiment ' lay,' as the expression used to be, in the
North Camp, and very imcomfortable ' lying ' it was for all

70 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

concerned. When I marched the company to which I belonged
to the group of huts assigned to us, I heard one of the old
twenty-one-j'ear men mutter as he entered the hut, ' Twenty

years all round the worruld, and in a cowshed at the end

of it/

All the drills, movements, and manoeuvres were exactly
what they had been fifty years before. There might just as
well have been no Crimean War, no Mutiny, no anything.
Most of the old officers swore as their ancestors had sworn on
the fields of Flanders one hundred years earlier. I think the
men liked them all the better on that account. The general in
command was a splendid veteran. It was he who, a quarter
of a century earlier, had told his men at Meeanee to ' turn the
fire-locks ' as they drove their bayonets into the enemy when
these brave Belooch swordsmen were hacking at the Twenty-
Second over the levelled bayonets. He had borne at Inker-
mann the worst pressure of the Russian attack in the early
hours of the fight. When the first reinforcement — Cathcart's
Division — came up, that general had ridden forward to ask to
what part of the field he should direct his troops. ' Anywhere
you like, my dear sir ; you '11 find plenty of fighting all round.'
And indeed he found it, for within a couple of hours Cathcart
and about half of his division were dead on the slopes that lay
to the right rear of the famous Sand-bag Redoubt.

I can still see this old hero sitting his charger on the top of
a knoU over the Basingstoke Canal, across which the engineers
had, in manoeuvre language, ' thrown a pontoon bridge '
(two pontoons and twenty planks). Over this structure our
brigade had to go, and the great point was that they should
not keep step as they crossed, but the poor feUows had been
so mercilessly trained to keep step that they couldn't break
it to save their lives ; and as the canal was only about four
feet deep in the centre of its twenty or thirty feet width, it
didn't matter a pin whether they fell in or not.

But from the general's excitement you might have thought
that the operation was quite on a par with that of the Russians
retreating over their bridge of boats from the south to the north
side of Sebastopol. Up we came to the canal in solid, serried
ranks. The more he swore at us, the more his staff roared at
us shouting ' break step,' the more our men stepped ' as one

ARMY ANECDOTES 71

man/ as they had been taught and drilled and bullied into
doing for years : tramp, tramp, tramp. I can never forget
the sight of that fine old soldier ; the reins dropped on his
charger's neck, his hands uplifted as far as they could go, and
a whole torrent of imprecations pouring from under his snow-
white moustache. Two ladies who had ridden out with the
staff thought it prudent to retire from the scene. The two
pontoons stood it all.

Among the old ofl&cers of lesser rank the one who gave us
youngsters the most unvarying entertainment was the colonel
of a distinguished Fusilier battalion, a North Briton. All the
manoeuvre formations were then in close order ; a modern
dynamite shell bursting in a brigade would inevitably have
ended the collective life and entire martial capacity of that
military unit. This view of the question, however, had not
occurred to any of our superiors ; and to us subalterns in the
ranks these close formations had, at least, the merit of enabling
us to get all the mounted officers of three or four battalions
within easy range of our ears and eyes. We knew, in fact,
everything that was going on in the brigade. Old Colonel
R. S. was our central pomt of interest. He had a profound
contempt and dislike for a staff officer, and in this feeling we
were with him to a man.

An A.D.C. or a Deputy A.D.C. would ride up to the brigade,
salute, dehver his orders, wheel his horse round, and gallop
away. Colonel R. S., being a very senior officer, was fre-
quently in command of the brigade. He would never move a
muscle as the staff officer went through his message. He
would then gravely turn to one of the old ' fizzer men,' as they
were called (pensioners who had the privilege of hawking
ginger-beer among the troops), and ask him, ' What did the
d f ule say ? '

* He said, yer honour, that the brigade was to move to the
right.'

' Did he ? Third brigade, fours left.'

Or, again, he would on occasion, when he had had words
with the messenger of movement, take all the men into his
confidence by turning in his saddle, and remarking with a most
comical expression of face, ' He '11 nae puzzle the Fusihers,
I can tell ye.' And indeed, I am quite sure that nothing which

72 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the most conceited young staff oflSicer could do would ever
have ' puzzled ' that splendid body of men. They would
have died to a man with that old Scotsman.

I had one resource at Aldershot of inestimable value to me.
It was the Prince Consort's library. Many an hour I spent in
that cool retreat reading of the wars on land and sea, and of the
men who fought them. By hook or crook I must go to Belgium,
and see some of the scenes themselves. The few pounds I had
put together in India were now gone. Aldershot was an
expensive station at that time, for regiments and battalions
were constantly arriving, and the reputation of the ' Old 69th '
for hospitality had to be kept up, literally at all costs. But
I managed to get together about twenty pounds, and one fine
evening I was off, knapsack on shoulder, for Lille, intending
to leave the train at Tournay, and begin to work the ground
on foot from that place.

I reached Tournay early on the second morning, picked up
a guide on the steps of the cathedral, and was soon on the road
to Fontenoy. The guide was a ghastly failure. He professed
to know the battlefields around Tournay, but I soon found
he knew only the public-houses. ' You know the field of
Fontenoy ? ' I said as we cleared the old town. Certainly he
knew Fontenoy, he answered ; was not his father in that
battle, and did not the Emperor decorate him when it was
over ? Astonished by this information I merely said, ' Go
ahead."

It was a very hot afternoon, the road was deep in dust, and
the knapsack still a new burden to my shoulders. Whenever
we passed a beer shop he looked longmgly at it ; but I held
steadily on, taking a most malicious satisfaction in the situation
that was now developing, for I soon saw that the feUow was
soft as butter. At last he craved a halt and a drink. These
I gave him, even though he still adhered to the story of the
decoration of his father on the field of Fontenoy by the Emperor
himself. Then I thought, ' Are we not now in the Cockpit
of Europe ? ' There were so many battles fought here that
this man ras^j well have got a bit mixed among them, and
perhaps in this matter of the decoration he had only inherited
an ancestral antipathy to the truth. So we went again along
the dusty road.

IN THE 'COCKPIT OF EUROPE' 73

It was getting towards sunset when we approached Fontenoy.
I had a map of the ground, and was on the lookout for the
wood of Barri. Passing that, we entered the scene of the
battle. A large country waggon, full of women and girls
returning from work, came along. ' Fontenoy ? ' I asked
inquiringly. They laughed, and pointed away to my left
front, where the ridge bent dowTi into lower ground, and over
the curve could be seen a church spire, some white houses, and
trees. They asked me to join them, and made room for me
in the waggon, laughing and talking, under large lace or fringe-
bordered caps, all the while. I was clearly a puzzle to them ;
but all the same they seemed disposed to accept my presence
as that of an old friend. Another time I might have accepted
the seat offered in their midst, but as there was less than an
hour's Ught in the sky I thought it wiser to keep my feet, and
made straight for Fontenoy. The ground was all familiar
to me, for I had studied the map of it well. I paid off my
guide. He had brought me to Fontenoy, even though he had
failed to convince me of the decoration bestowed upon his
father in the battle.

On every side where the land was clear of wood the ground
lay open and unfenced : stubble interspersed with grass. Three
miles away on the right, Antoiag showed its church top above
the valley of the Scheldt ; then the higher ground upon which
the French army had stood curved round towards Fontenoj^
about two miles, and then ran in on the same easy circle to
Barri, the semicircle making altogether about four miles along
its circumference from the wood of Barri on the left to Antoing
on the right.

In front of the village of Fontenoy the ground dropped
quickly into the valley of Voyon. Never was there easier field
upon which to identify the events which took place there on
the 11th May 1745. Save that the French redoubts have
long ago been levelled by the ploughshare, everything is un-
changed. Between the village of Fontenoy and the wood of
Barri all the fighting took place. There Ligonier led on his
column of fourteen thousand English and Hanoverian troops
and twenty guns into the left centre of the French position.
Shot at by cannon, charged by cavalry, fired mto by infantry,
they go slowly forward, until meeting the French Guards the

74 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

two columns exchange first compliments and then volleys,
until half of the whole are down in the young corn.

The battle began at five in the morning, and it was all
over by one o'clock. At noon the aUies were in full retreat
on Ath. Some fifteen thousand dead and wounded covered
this gently rolling ground. History has given half a dozen
versions of this once famous fight ; but what is assured as
fact is that Cumberland's column under Ligonier had all but
won victory when it was wrested from their grasp by the
terrible onslaught of Saxe's reserve troops, among which six
regiments of Irish infantry, under Count Lally, formed the
most potent body and struck the most decisive blows.

I made my way across the field of Antoing as the dusk was
gathering over Fontenoy, and a white mist was coming up from
the Voyon Valley, creeping like a great ghost of battle across
the ridge where this wild slaughter had been wrought. The
partridges were calling briskly to each other in the cool twihght ;
the smoke of supper was going up from many cottage chimneys.
How was I to fare in that way at Antoing ? I struck straight
for that Uttle old Flemish town, and at the inn kept by Monsieur
and Madame Roger Dubois the question was most satisfactorily
solved. After a little preparatory delay, a fillet, a partridge,
a salad, an omelette, a bottle of Bordeaux, grapes, coffee, and
a petit verre — what more could mortal ask on the evening of
a hot day ? Heroes of Fontenoy, old, forgotten, long- waist-
coated grenadiers of England, France, and Ireland — Saxe,
Cumberland, Ligonier, d'Auteroche, Richelieu, and LaUy —
I pledge aU your memories in silence as the clock in the old
church tower outside strikes the hour of nine ! To you in
particular, Madame Roger Dubois, I hft my glass and take off
my hat ! If history tells truth, your husband's very remarkable
namesake, the Archbishop of Cambray, received a cardinal's
hat through the friendly intervention of George the First,
whose son was to lose this fight at Fontenoy some few years
later. Well, if the first George was to get a cardinal's hat
for anj^body, it was perhaps meet that it should have been for
that ' httle thin meagre man with the pole-cat visage, in whom
all the vices . . . contend for mastery ' ; but perhaps the royal
victor of Fontenoy would have had a better place in history to-
day had he hanged him.

FIELDS OF MALPLAQUET AND JEMAPPES 75

The following day came oppressively warm, and I had a
long march before me. I was to sleep at Mons, for I
wished to see the field of Jcraappes, that opening scene
of the conquering revolution, and another great field of
former fight which lay near Mons — Malplaquet. The sun
was beating down on the narrow paved streets of Antoing
almost with the fervour of the Camatic as I cleared the town
and took the road Mons-ward. It lay along the vaUey of the
Scheldt, sometimes hot and dusty, sometimes under shade of
rustling poplars, cool and refreshing after the glare. It took
me long to get out of sight of the spire of Antoing and the tall
tower of the old chateau, but at last I reached Jemappes
very tired. No ' field ' here for thought or study ; nothing
but a dry cinder-heaped hill, with smoking chimneys above it
and coal-mines below. Nothing to show where Dumouriez
placed his troops for the attack, where Clarefait's fourteen
heavy batteries were ranged, where young De Charteris led
his blue-coated volunteers up the hill of Cuesnes to assault
the Austrian batteries ; no chance, even, of identifying the
three particular coalpits down which the victorious French
put their own and their enemy's twelve thousand dead men
and horses. The black country in Stafford is scarcely more
cinder-heaped and smoke-grimed than is this spot where the
first act of the greatest drama ever plaj-ed in human history
began.

At INIons next day I had better luck. From the top of the
high tower of St. Wadru, that old towTi of neither toil nor traffic,
the eye could range far over this south end of the great ' cock-
pit,' over Malplaquet, over Frameries, over Bavay, over
Jemappes. There yonder, between Sars and Tenniers, on
the 11th September 1709, fell some thirty-five thousand French,
English, Dutch, Danes, Germans, and Italians. ' Those who
were not killed,' wrote Eugene, * died of fatigue. I gave some
rest to the remains of my troops, buried aU I could, and then
marched to Mons.' Of all the battles of Queen Anne's wars,
this of ^lalplaquet was the most deadly. Although the AUies
won the honours, the French got the tricks. ' The plunder
of France was the general discourse in Germany, England,
and HoUand at the opening of the campaign of 1709 ' ; but the
loss of the twenty-five thousand of the best of the Allied troops

76 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

saved France from serious invasion, and so crippled the attack-
ing power of the Allies that it practically led to the conclusion
of the war. ' If it pleases God/ wrote Marshal Villars after
the fight, ' to favour j'our Majesty with the loss of another
such battle, your enemies wiU be destroyed.' That was about
the truth.

I rambled along for another few daj^s, and finally found my-
self on the road which led north from Fleurus to Ligny. The
hot weather still continued, but notwithstanding the heat and
foot-travel, the days were pleasant in themselves and delightful
now to look back upon. I kept a notebook, and I find in it
little bits of the life in town and country that read freshly
now : —

' Stopped to rest in a clump of trees crossing a little mound on
the right of the road, where there was an image of the Crucifixion,
and underneath the inscription which poor Tom Hood wove so well
into the ode that made Rae Wilson famous and ridiculous lq his
generation : —

The pious choice had fixed upon the verge of a delicious slope,

Giving the eye such variegated scope.

" Look round," it whispered, " oil that prospect rare,

Those vales so verdant and those hills so blue :

Enjoy the sunny world so fresh and fair :

But" (how the simple legend pierced me through),

" Priez, pour les malheureux."

' Yes, it was a fair world, and a delightful thing to wander over
it. No anxiety for the morrow, no care for to-day, no regret for
yesterday ; eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, reading the
leaves of the trees, seeing the sunny half of the great round peach
which we call the world. When I repine at poverty and wish for
money, it is not for love of the gold thing itself, but for the love
of all the golden scenes which the want of it hides from me. And
then so little would suffice for what I long to do. The money
which thousands waste without anything to show for it would
carry me through the length of this glorious world. Men talk of
knowledge of the world, meaning only knowledge of the human
town mites that are on it, but of the true world they know nothing.

' Evening. — Halting in a sheepfold. The sheep have gathered in
for the night. They stare at the strange intruder, first with
awe, then with surprise, then with indifference or contempt. One,
older or bolder than the others, presumes upon his ten minutes'

FIELD OF LIGNY 77

acquaintance to approach close, look straight into my face, and
stamp his foot at me. " Be off out of that," he says.

' Sunday morniiig. — The chimes in the old church tower have been
busy for some time, and the inhabitants of the village are going
past my open window in their best bib and tucker. I looked into
the billiard-room of the inn last night, and now I can scarcely
recognise in the black-coated churchgoers the players of last even-
ing. I begin to be ashamed of my single tweed suit, now looking
dusty and travel-stained ; but when a man has to carry his own
baggage he cuts his clothing, not to his cloth, but to his knapsack.'

This day at Ligny was the longest and hottest of any in my
rambles. All the names on the milestones were like the faces
of old dead friends seen in a dream — Ligny, St. Amand, Som-
brefife, Bry, Quatre Bras, ' To Genappe,' ' To Namur,' ' To
Waterloo.' I had been reading of these places, great hinges
of history, graveyards of human glory, for years in all sorts of
places, trying so hard to transfer their printed names into
brain pictures, that now when I came upon them, not in the
flesh but in corn ridge and pasture slope and cottage plot, it
seemed impossible they could be what the milestones and
fingerposts said they were — themselves.

I passed through the little village of Lign}', and got to the
higher ridges of Bry immediately behind it. The old windmill
at Bussy, where Bliicher had seen his centre broken in the
twUight of the June evening, was there still, and near it stood
a single old walnut-tree, offering most grateful shade under its
branches. From this point, the events of the 16th June
1815 could be seen in a single sweep of vision. It was another
of these Fontenoy fields, readable from a single centre, a thing
never to be possible again. One hundred years ago men stood
six hundred yards from their enemies ; now thej^ stand six
thousand yards away. Below where I sat ran the little
streamlet of Ligny, its valley forming an almost continuous
line of hamlets from St. Amand on the right to Sombre ffe on
the left.

All along this valley, for a distance of some four miles, a
terrible combat was waged on the afternoon of 16th June
1815. Villages, hamlets, and farmhouses were taken and
retaken again and again ; while above, on the parallel ridges
which front each other before either side of the rivulet of

78 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Ligny, some four hundred and fifty guns thundered over the

combatants.

I had to sleep somewhere near Quatre Bras that night,
so after a rest of about an hour I struck the main line of paved
road between Namur and Nivelles, near Sombreffe, and held
westward towards Quatre Bras.

About liaKway between the two places there is some high
ground on the right of the Chaussee which commands an
extensive prospect upon either side. You can see Fleurus and
Charleroi to the south, a.nd the half-dozen white houses of
Quatre Bras to the west, while where you turn north-west the
top of the cone of the lion-mound on the field of Waterloo is
visible in this direction. You can see, too, a little to the east
of north, the smoke of Wavre. At Marbais you stand nearly
in the centre of the square which has for its corners the four
battle-points of Ligny, Quatre Bras, Waterloo, and Wavre,
and all the grand but simple strategy of Napoleon's campaign
of 1815, planned in Paris, is apparent, magnificent in con-
ception, simple when it is once understood. The armies of his
adversaries, Wellington and Bliicher, were cantoned facing
the northern frontier of France from Namur to Ath, along
a distance of some fifty miles. They numbered a total of about
two hundred and thirty thousand men, with more than five
hundred guns.

The Emperor Napoleon could strike at this great array with
a total of only one hundred and eleven thousand men and
three hundred and fifty cannon. It was an enormous, almost
a hopeless, disparity of force, but it had to be faced, because
at least another four hundred thousand men were moving from
all Europe against the French frontiers.

From east to west, and through the centre of the Allied canton-
ments, ran a great paved highway (the same we are now on at
Marbais), affording the easiest means of concentrating both
armies, either separately or together. This great road was
bisected at Quatre Bras by another main road leading from
Charleroi to Brussels, running nearly north and south. If
Napoleon could seize Charleroi, he would be within striking
distance of the great central road from Namur to Quatre Bras
and Nivelles. Here at Marbais we are at the spot which
marked the point where the left of the army under Wellington

NAPOLEON'S STRATEGY 79

touched the right of Bliicher's army. Napoleon's plan was to
strike this road at two places — one Sombreffe, which we have
just quitted ; the other Quatre Bras, to which we are going.
If he could gain these two places on the main road, he had
cut in two the direct line between his powerful enemies, and
as neither of them had as yet concentrated their armies, he
might hope to engage them separately and beat them in detail.
At daybreak on the 15th June he launched some seventy
thousand men in three columns upon Charleroi. They were
all to meet at or near that city. By noon the heads of these
three columns had crossed the Sambre, carried Charleroi, and
were pursuing the Prussian corps of Ziethen back to the great
road at Sombreffe. On the same evening the French left
column under Ney, following the bisecting road from Charleroi
to Quatre Bras, had reached Frasne, less than three miles from
Quatre Bras, driving the Allied troops of the Prince of Orange
back to Quatre Bras. When night closed on the 15th the
position of the three armies was as follows : the French head-
quarters were at Charleroi, the centre concentrated round that
place, the Prussians at Namur, the English at Brussels. Not
until midnight on that day (the 15th), did the Duke of Welling-
ton know that his enemy, whom he believed to be still in Paris,
was in reality at Charleroi, thirty miles south of Brussels.
Bliicher, seventeen miles east of Namur, was in equal
ignorance of Napoleon's movements, and of the concentration
of his army on the frontier, one march distant from Charleroi,
until the night of the 14th June.

It was a master-stroke of strategy, among the most brilliant
in the records of war. One incident had alone interfered with
its complete success — it was the desertion of the traitors,
Bourmont and Cluet, on the 14th June, to the Prussians at
Namur. Bourmont was the chief of the stafif of Gerard's Corps
forming the right wing of the French army. Cluet was an
officer of Engineers, and there was a third officer of lesser rank.
These three traitors carried to Bliicher, on the night of the 14th
at Namur, the first news he had received of the French move-
ment ; and Bourmont, from his high position on the staff, was
able to impart secret information of the highest moment.

It is now certain that if it had not been for this traitorous
act the whole Prussian arm}" would have been quiet in its

80 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

cantonments on the morning of the 15th June, and it would
then have required a clear fort3'^-eight hours to assemble even
three corps of the Prussian army in front of Charleroi. With
the information given him by Bourmont, Bliicher was able to
beat the ' Generale ' in his various cantonments on the night
of the 14th Jmie, and to get his scattered corps in movement
in the direction of Fleurus at daybreak on the 15th. Bour-
mont's treachery had robbed Napoleon of about twelve precious
hours.

Nevertheless, the chances were all in his favour at midnight
on the 15th. Ney had actually reported his occupation of
Quatre Bras. Napoleon himself was within striking distance
of Sombreffe. Thus the main road commanding the two
Allied armies would probably be in his possession on the 16th,
and the two armies would be cut asunder.

The next day's work was to be this :

With his centre and right massed together, Napoleon would
attack the Prussians at or near SombreSe. Nej'' was to attack
Quatre Bras eight miles west of Sombreffe, whatever might be in
his front. The result of the 16th June" is easil}^ told. Napoleon
performed his part of the programme by smashing the Prussians
at Ligny ; Ney failed in his much easier task at Quatre Bras.
On that morning of the 16th he had more than forty thousand
men, and over a hundred guns under his command, between
Gossehes and Quatre Bras. Only a weak, mixed brigade of the
enemy held that important post. Nevertheless, Ney let the
precious morning hours slip away in total inaction at Frasnes,
and it was past two o'clock in the afternoon when he moved
on Quatre Bras. That position had then been heavily rein-
forced, and every hour of daj^'hght that remained saw fresh
accessions of force arriving from the English reserve at Brussels,
and the scattered cantonments to the west. Here occurred
the first loss of the campaign of 1815 for Napoleon. The
essence of this tremendous problem he had set himself to solve
was time. In war, time must inevitablj' be often lost ; but
for this loss of at least eight hours before Quatre Bras there
was neither reason nor excuse. It was the most gratuitous
waste of opportunity that the history of war affords, unless,
indeed, it be found two days later in another inexplicable loss
of ten hours on the part of a French marshal on the other

FIELD OF QUATRE BRAS 81

side of this great square, of which the four corners held the
campaigning ground of 1815. Grouchy, on the 18th, will
repeat, with still more disastrous results to his master, this
terrible inaction at Gembloux, at Tabaraque, and at Wavre,
which Ney is here practising at Gosselies, Frasnes, and Quatre
JBras.

I must resume my own march upon Quatre Bras, and see
the ground for myself. So, taking up the knapsack again, I
trudged westward along the high road. I reached the little
hamlet at the cross-roads as the sun was getting low towards
the horizon. There was the field untouched : the wood of
Boissu, the farm of Gemioncourt, rising into the higher ground
behind which lay the village of Frasnes, the half a dozen white
houses standing bare about the point of intersection of the
two great highways.

The stubble was crisp under foot as I held on by Gemion-
court and Frasnes. A few ploughmen were unyoking their
teams and turning homewards. Of all the fields of Flanders
this of Quatre Bras had the strongest personal interest for me.
Just there below the ridge of Gemioncourt the 69th Regiment
had fared badly at the hands of Kellermann's Cuirassiers on
the afternoon of that 16th June. It was not their fault, poor
fellows. The Prince of Orange had insisted upon line being
formed from the square into which a careful colonel (who was
killed two days later at Waterloo) had put them; the Cuirassiers
had simpl}^ rolled up the line from right to left, killed and
wounded a hundred and fifty officers and men, and taken the
regimental colour back with them to Ney on the ridge of Frasnes.

Before I left Aldershot, one of those excellent men who have
leamt to laugh at everything out of England asked me why
I was going abroad to look at a lot of turnip fields ; ' You
know that here in England they say you can't get blood out
of a turnip.' I answered : ' But in Belgium you can get plenty
of turnips out of blood ; that 's why I 'm going there.'

I reached Frasnes very tired after sunset. The day had
been hot and hard, and I was badly in need of supper and rest.
I found both in a clean little cottage here at Frasnes. When
the homely supper was served on a snow-white cloth, I found
another guest at table. He was the head of the village com-
mune, an excellent specimen of the Flemish peasant. There

F

82 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

was a dessert of grapes and two or three peaches, one of the
latter bemg redder and riper than the others. My companion
had the plate of fruit in front of him ; he turned it carefully
round until the big peach was facing where I sat, and then
courteously offered the plate to me. It was a simple thing,
but I have never forgotten it. Civility goes a long way, they
say ; in the case of my peasant friend at Frasnes it has gone
more than forty years. Liberty, equality, fraternity, and the
greatest of these is fraternity ; and perhaps if people practised
it more frequently they need not have troubled themselves so
much about the other two.

I walked from Frasnes to Waterloo on the following day.
It was quite as hot and hard as any of the other days ; but by
this time I was hard too.

I have said enough about these old Flemish fields of fight.
We are not yet one hundred years from Waterloo. It is quite
possible that there are thoughtful people in England to-day
who are not quite so keen as their fathers were upon the ' leg
up ' on the high horse of Europe which we gave Germany in
that memorable campaign ; and neither am I sure that there
may not be ' a good few ' in other parts of Europe who rather
regret that flank march from Wavre to Waterloo, which saved
Wellington from defeat, and made the rock of St. Helena
famous.

CHAPTER VI

The Channel Isles. Victor Hugo. The Curragh. To Canada.
Leave in the West. Buffalo hunt.

The 69th went from Aldershot to the Channel Isles in the
summer of 1866, and my lot fell to the beautiful little island
of Guernsey, where two companies were quartered in Fort
George on the crest of the hill above St. Peter's Port. The
view from the rampart of this old fort was very striking —
islands near and far on what was usually a blue and sparklmg
sea, and beyond the islands the coast of Normandj^ from Cape
La Hogue to Coutance. It was a verj^ happy spot, this island:
no very rich people and no very poor people in it ; moderate
comfort everywhere ; fruits and flowers everj'where ; the land
and the sea giving a two-handed harvest to the inhabitants.
It had, however, one serious drawback : intoxicating drink
was as plentiful as it was cheap. The island had a copper
currency of its own ; unfortunate^, a depreciated one. If a
man tendered an English shilling in pajTnent for a glass of
brandy, he received twelve Guernsey pennies back. This
was too much for old soldiers, particularly for the men who
had served in tropical countries — a glass of French brandy
and twelve Guernsey pennies given in return for one English
shilling ! No soldier in his senses could understand a rate of
exchange based on such principles, even before he had drunk
his glass of brandy, and after that event the problem became
still more abstruse. It was impossible not to love these old
soldiers, for, notwithstanding this failing, they had so many
splendid qualities. I call these men old ; in reality they were
all under forty years, but they were old in every other sense of
the word. If you asked any of these men when they were in
hospital what was wrong with them, they would usually
answer, ' Only them pains, sir ' ; and if you asked again what
had given them those ' pains,' they would invariably say it

84 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

was the heavy belts and cumbersome pouches they had to wear
for twentj^'-four hours on guard. It was true. Our stupid
regulations broke down those fine soldiers long before their
time. Men said that there were other causes, but I don't
think there were. There was not a regimental band in the
service in which you could not have found some old bassoon
or trombone player, who had sampled in his time every in-
toxicating fluid from cocoanut toddy to methylated spirits,
but who, nevertheless, was still going and blowing strong,
simply because he had not done a night's guard duty in his
twenty years.

A short road led to St. Peter's Port from our fort on the hill.
Half-way down the slope one passed a rather gloomy-looking,
soUd, square house, standing on the right of the road. This
was Hauteville House, in which Victor Hugo had lived for
several years. He was absent from Guernsey at this time,
on a visit to Belgium. I had but recently finished reading his
Les Miserables. I thought his description of Waterloo the
finest piece of writing I had ever read. It had been constantly
in my mind during the recent visit to Waterloo, and I had felt
all that time the want of a practical acquaintance with the
French language. The first thing I now thought of doing in
this French-speaking island was to learn it.

A chance inquiry about a tutor gave me the name of a
M. Hannett de Kesler, who lived in a smaU house at a little
distance below Hauteville. It was thus that I made the ac-
quaintance of one of the most delightful human beings I have
met in life. He lived in very straitened circumstances with
only an old woman servant to keep house for him. He
had had a remarkable career. Editor of a Republican news-
paper in Paris in 1848, he had all the courage of his convictions,
and had stood beside Baudin on the barricade in the Faubourg
St. Antoine on the memorable morning in December 1851.
Then he had gone into exile with Victor Hugo and others.
When an amnesty was offered later he refused to acpept it.
' Never,' said Victor Hugo, at poor Kesler's grave two years
after the time I am writing of — ' Never was there more pro-
found and tenacious devotion than his. He was a champion
and a sufferer. He possessed all forms of courage, from the
lively courage of the combat to the slow courage of endurance ;

1

ACQUAINTANCE WITH VICTOR HUGO 85

from the braver}- which faces the cannon, to the heroism which
accepts the loss of home/ He was a deep and sincere Re-
pubUcan, and his love and devotion to Victor Hugo were an
extraordinary thing to see. He literally worshipped the poet.
But above all that anybody could say of him, stood his honesty
and his simplicity of life. I look upon the hours spent in the
society of this dear old man with unalloyed pleasure. He
was broken in health, and was already showing symptoms of
the slow form of paralysis of which he died two years later.
He wrote poetry, simple and touching little verses, inspired,
I think, b}^ the antics of a minx of some sixteen summers
who lived opposite, and who used to make eyes at him across
the street. He used to read these verses to me. I remember
one that began

' Elle a le charme, elle a la grace.'

He was, as I have said, in very straitened circumstances ;
but he kept it all to himself, and would not even let Victor
Hugo know of his wants.

A month or two after I had begun to take lessons from him,
in August I think it was, I had to go away for a few weeks.
I was settling his modest fee for tuition, and I wanted to pay
in advance up to the end of the j-ear. I put the gold pieces
on the table, but he would only take what was due to him at
the moment, and insisted upon returning the rest of the money
to me. It was some time after my return that I discovered
the cause of this refusal. He had determined to go on board
the Jersey steamer, and drop quietly overboard in front of
the paddle-box on the voyage. He did not want to be a burden
upon anybody. That was the reason he had returned the few
sovereigns I had wished to give him in advance ! Meanwhile,
somebody told Victor Hugo of the pecuniary straits of his
devoted follower, and provision was at once made to meet his
simple wants.

Shortly after the return of Victor Hugo to the island, I
received a very courteous invitation to Hauteville House.
' n a ajout6, " J'aurais le plus grand plaisir a voir Monsieur
Butler, et j'espere qu'il ne tardera pas a me faire cet honneur." '

There was a District Court-martial that forenoon, which I
was obliged to attend, and I went to it with feelings not easy

86 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

to describe. Something went very wrong with the pro-
ceedings shortly after we assembled, and I took advantage of
the adjournment to fly to Hauteville House. I found there a
party of some eight or ten persons assembled in a room which
had many curious conceits in its furniture and decorations.
Four carved seats were let into the wainscoting, with paint-
ings done on their high straight backs in the old Dutch style.
Three of these stiff chairs were for the living, and one, which
had a chain across its arms, was marked ' For the dead.' The
paintings represented ' The End of the Soldier,' ' The End of the
Law^'^er,' and ' The End of the Priest.' I have forgotten how
the two first were supposed to come by their ends, but in the
last picture a woman was laj^ing a birch broom across the
shoulders of a French cleric who was in the act of disappearing
through a doorway.

During the dejeuner Victor Hugo spoke a great deal. I
was able to follow what he said with difficulty. What struck
me most was the extraordinary sonorous tone of his voice,
its modulations, and, if I might use the word, its ramifica-
tions. It seemed to run up and down through words as the
fingers of a great musician might range through notes of
music.

He frequently repeated the invitation to me to attend these
little weekly parties, and I used to meet him also in his walks
to Fermain Bay, a beautiful little secluded sea cove between
very high rocks, not far from our fort. At times he used to be
full of fun and raillery, but the general tone of his mind was
grave and serious. I kept no regular diary at this time, but
I find in an intermittent little notebook some references to
these meetings,

' 22nd Octr. (1866).— At breakfast with Victor Hugo. After
looking at me for some time, he suddenly said : " I have examined
your face, and if I was ever to be tried I would wish to have you
for a judge."

' 2&h Nov. — To-day at Victor Hugo's. He said : " I also am an
Irishman. I love Ireland because she is to me a Poland and a
Hungary, because she suffers. . . ." Later he asked me if I would
accompany him the following year through Ireland. " I want to
see that island and its i^eople. You shall be my guide there. The
only stipulation I will make is that we shall drive everywhere,
and that you will not ask me to travel in a train." '

VICTOR HUGO AT HOME 87

But the next year I was far away in Canada !

* 4th Dec. — Dined this evening in company with Victor Hugo at
Monsieur Le Bers'. He was full of fun. " Take care of him ! " he
said, pointing at me ; " he is an enfant terrible."

' 10th Dec. — Breakfasted at Victor Hugo's. He said that there
were two English words which he hated : one was " Respectable,"
and the other " Ragged." " Ragged School ! think of that," he went
on ; " does it not make you shiver ? " '

Of the many curious things to be seen in Haute ville House,
the master's sleeping-room was the strangest. He had built
it on the roof between two great blocks of chimneys. You
ascended to his workshop bedroom by stairs which somewhat
resembled a ladder : quite half of the room was glass, and the
view from it was magnificent ; the isles of Jethou and Sark
were in the middle distance, and beyond lay many a mile of
the Norman coast. Alderney lay to the north, and beyond it
one saw the glistening windows of the triple lighthouses on
the Casquet rocks, and still more to the right the high ridges
overlooking Cherbourg. The bed was a small camp bedstead,
with a table on one side of it, and a small desk chest of drawers
on the other, with pens, ink and paper always within reach.
Near the bed stood a small stove, which he lighted himself
every morning, and on which he prepared his cafe.-au-lait ;
then work began at the large table which stood in the glass
alcove a few feet from the foot of the bed. This work went on
till it was time to dress and descend to the dejeuner in the room
on the ground floor already described.

As the sheets of writing-paper were finished, they were
numbered and dropped on the floor, to be picked up, arranged,
and put away in the drawer-desk at the end of the morning's
labour. He called the writing-table his ' carpenter's bench,'
and the leaves which fell from it his ' shavings.' It was at
this table and in this airy attic that most of the great work of
his later life was done. Here were written Les Miserahles, Les
Travailleurs de la Mer, and many volumes of poetry. Among
the few things which have survived the tossings and travails
of life I have still managed to retain in my possession some
of the ' shavings ' from that ' carpenter's bench,' which he
gave me as souvenirs of his friendship.

Nowhere in these islands is the sea more delightful than at

88 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Guernsey. Victor Hugo has told us that when he and his
son found themselves exiles in the Channel Isles, the son asked
him what he proposed to do. ' I shall look at the sea/ replied
the father ; ' and you ? ' 'I will translate Shakespeare/
answered the son. In this little conversation we get the key
to two of the poet's works, Les Travailleurs de la Mer and
William Shakespeare — the last httle known, but nevertheless
the work of which its author was proudest.

It is a wonderful sea that laves the feet of these beautiful
island rocks. I bathed m it through the winter months of
1866-67.

Suddenly, at the end of the winter, ' the route,' as it used
to be called, came. The 69th was ordered to Ireland. So,
in March 1867, we sailed away from Guernsej^, leaving with
many regrets its kind, gentle, and generous people. The
soldier is but a ' toiler of the sea ' and the land, and that means
many partings in his life. But this life of changing scene
has several sides to it. I have sometimes thought that a
marching regiment filled in our social system the place taken
by a comet in the solar system when it comes along and the
people run to the window and look out.

We spent the early summer of 1867 at the Curragh ; but in
August ' the route ' came again suddenly, and we embarked
for Canada on the 19th of that month in the transport Serapis,
then making her first voyage. It was a very uncomfortable
experience ; the vessel had little or no baUast, and she bobbed
about among the Atlantic rollers for thirteen days before
getting to Quebec. After a delay of one day we were trans-
ferred to boats plying between Quebec and Montreal, and
again transferred to other river craft bound for Hamilton, at
the western end of Lake Ontario ; finally getting to a little
town in Western Canada called Brantford, about midway
between Lakes Ontario and Erie. This district had been the
scene of some recent incursions at the hands of armed bodies
of Fenians who had formerlj^ served in the Northern armies
of the now once more L^nited States, and who, finding their
occupation gone on the Potomac and the Rapahannock, had
elected to carry on war on their own account on the St. Law-
rence and the Welland Canal. Hence our rapid movement to
Canada.

CANADIAN LIFE 89

The whole character of the new scene of service was so novel
to me, and so fuU of the virility of a youthful people, that it
would be impossible to give expression to the sense of the
freshness of life that went with it to us who now beheld it for
the first time. The approach by the mighty estuary of the
St. Lawrence River, the gradual drawing in of these great
shores, the immense width of the stream when it is still six
hundred miles from the open sea, the varied scenery of lake
and rapid along the upward course to Ontario, and then that
beautiful expanse of water itself, all combined to strike the
mind of the newcomer with the sense of size and majesty
which is the dominant note of the American continent.

In boyhood I had read the novels of Fenimore Cooper
with an intensity of interest never to be known again
in reading. ' Leather Stocking,' Lucas, Chingaghook, the
Mohicans, the Hurons, the scenery of the Thousand Islands —
aU these had been things quite as real to- me in imagination
as the actual scenes through which we were now passing.
Only the Indians and the wild animals were wanting. \Miere
were they ? Gone from this West Canada, but still to be found
west of the Mississippi and the Missouri, I was told. It was
now the middle of September. I got three months' leave of
absence and, in company with another old friend of the Indian
forest days, started out for the great West. Three days after
leaving Brantford we were at Omaha, west of the Mississippi.
Fortune had favoured us. We knew nobody, nobody knew
us, and yet it was simple truth to say that everybody be-
friended us. You met a man on board the train going to
Chicago : he couldn't do enough for you ; he passed you on
to some other good fellow who knew somebody else five hundred
or a thousand miles nearer to the setting sun ; and when you
alighted at the longitude of that particular location, you found
that man as friendly as though he had been expecting you
for years.

This was exactly what happened to us. We struck upon a
general going west in the Chicago hotel, and he at once offered
his good services to and at Omaha on the Missouri, where he
was then stationed. At that period the soldiers of the armies
of Sherman and Grant seemed to be all either in the West, or
going there. The new railway to California was just opened

90 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

to Omaha ; and it was said that a train ran as far over the
Nebraska prairies as Fort Kearney on the North Platte River,
three hundred miles west of the Missouri, where the garrison
of the fort was largely rationed, so far as fresh beef went, upon
buflfalo-meat. This was indeed news to us, and we set off from
Chicago in high spirits. When the next evening came we
crossed the Missouri over a very crank-looking temporary
wooden bridge to Omaha. We found that city a very lively
place ; railway navvies, gold-diggers, speculators abounded.
Shooting went on pretty briskly in the gambling rooms and
drinking saloons, of which there appeared to be an unlimited
number. Every man policed himself with a sort of murderous
solemnity that was most impressive. At one of the principal
saloons, a day or two before our arrival, a miner had quietly
drawn a bead upon a man who had just entered and was walking
up towards the bar. ' WTiat did you shoot him for ? ' asked
his mate. ' Wall, I just guess that if I hadn't done that he
might have hurt somebody,' was the plea of justifiable homicide
entered by this voluntary preserver of the peace.

Our friend, the Chicago general, called early next day at
our hotel, and asked us to go with him to the headquarters
of the command. We went, and were introduced to General
Augur, a very distmguished officer of the regular army who
had held high command in the Civil War. Augur was of that
splendid type of gentleman which West Point has so long given
to America, and I will venture to hazard the opinion that if
America keeps her military school at West Point m the future
as she has kept it in the past, she need not fear that either
foreign or domestic enemies wiU do her serious harm. West
Point will give her captains for many wars ; and the class
to which that ' peace preserver ' belonged, whose peculiar
methods of disciplme I have already described, will give her
the rank and file of fighting men.

The general had already been informed of the object of our
journey to the West, and he entered warmly into our plans.
He would telegraph at once to the commandant at Fort
Kearney as to the whereabouts of buffalo on the Platte prairies,
and if the answer proved favourable to our hopes he would
send his aide-de-camp. Captain RusseU, with us to the Fort,
to smooth difficulties and facilitate our progress. The reply

A MERRY PARTY GOING WEST 91

came quickly. Yes ; there were several herds on the prairies
near Kearney. So the next morning, in company with Captain
Russell, we took the train for Fort Kearney Station on the
new Union Pacific Railway. Some other officers and soldiers
were proceeding west to join garrisons in the Indian districts
of the Platte and RepubUcan Rivers. We were a very merry
party. All the officers had served in the Civil War — some
with Sherman, others with Grant. We had the end of the
Pullman car to ourselves.

There was no want of refreshment, and nobody thought of
retiring to the sleeping compartment until the night was more
than half over. Storj' followed story. A major of the United
States Infantry named Burt told the best ; but the general's
A.D.C. was a good second. I remember one of these stories
which had a touch of historical interest in it.

General Grant was carrj^ing out on the Mississippi, previous
to the battle of Shiloh, one of the most hazardous operations
known in war — crossing his army from one shore to the other,
within striking distance of his enemy on the farther shore.
He had only three river steamers to ferry his troops over. On
the third day the operation was almost completed, and the
general and his staff were on horseback on the enemy's side of
the Mississippi, watching the passage of the rearmost battalions
in the three steamboats. Grant sat his horse, silently smok-
ing a large cigar, which he rolled a good deal between his
lips. A staff officer in the group happened to observe that
if they were licked in the next day or two they would want
more transport to take the army back to where it had come
from than those three httle boats could give them. Rumour
said that the general had consumed a good deal of Bourbon
whisky that day, as was his wont at the time, I have heard ;
but be that as it may, it did not unlock his lips ; he continued
to roll and bite the big cigar in grim silence. The staff officer
repeated his observation about the scantiness of transport.
After a bit the general seemed to have become aware that
somebody had spoken, and that he was himself expected to
say something in reply. Then the big cigar rolled quicker
than before, and from the compressed lips the remark issued,
' Guess them three boats wiU be enough to take back what 's
left if I 'm hcked to-morrow ! '

92 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

We reached Kearney Station as day was breaking, and found
a six-team army mule- waggon awaiting us. The fort was still
some six miles from the railway, and on the other side of the
Platte River. Things were soon fixed up, and away we went
across a prairie as level as a billiard- table, just as the light was
making the surrounding scene visible. Here was the mystic
word ' prairie ' at last a veritable reality. Since my early
boyhood that word had meant to me everything that was
possible in the breathing, seeing, and grasping of freedom.

We came suddenly to the Platte River, a huge, sandy bed
more than a mile in width, wdth several streams running through
portions of it. A mile from the south bank stood Fort Kearney.

The sun was now on the horizon, and the mists were lifting.
As we approached the wooden palisades of the fort, we saw
two big black objects standing on the prairie about a thousand
yards on one side of the buildings. Buffalo ? Yes, there they
were. Another mmute, and we were drawn up at the door
of the commandant's house m Fort Kearney. He was at the
door to give us welcome, in full uniform, and with a broad-
brimmed, steeple-crowned hat on his head ; and a very cheery
welcome it was.

' Colonel,' he said to me, * these early Fall mornings have
chills in them ; we have some medicme here which we find
very effective against Platte fever.' A large bowl of hot
Bourbon whisky egg-flip was on the table, and he ladled
us tumblers of this fever-kiher all round. The commandant
was one of the most typical American figures possible to
imagine — tall, thin, gaunt, wrinkled many years in advance
of his age, he might have stood as the model for a picture of a
primitive New England Puritan in the second generation from
the Mayflower. Every now and then there came some word
into his speech giving at first rather a shock to any ideas
of complete Puritanic perfection, which his outward semblance
and strong nasal utterance might have occasioned. He
belonged to the 18th Regiment of Infantry. He had been
many things in his time. He had run a newspaper in Pitts-
burg, made three sections of the Indiana and Memphis Railway,
had kept a store in Lake Street, Chicago, had fought the
Confederates for three years as a volunteer colonel, had been
in as many general actions as the Duke of WeUington, and

SIGHTING THE BUFFALO HERD 93

when the Northern army was reduced at the end of the war,
he contentedly accepted a lieutenancy in the regular service
of the United States. England must have seen many men
of his type in the army that was drawn up on Blackheath as
Charles the Second rode past to London in 1660.

The sight of the two big buffalo bulls within a mile of the fort
was so strong in our minds, that we proposed to proceed at
once in pursuit of them. This proposal for immediate action
before breakfast seemed to tickle his fancy. He at once
abandoned Salem mannerisms, and descended into congre-
gational colloquialisms. ' Boys,' he said, bringing us down
with a run to our proper levels from previous field rank, ' Boys,
don't you trouble about them darned two bull-buffaloes. We '11
have breakfast in half an hour, the horses will be ready at
nine o'clock, the shooting irons all fixed up, and we '11 have
the hull day for the buffalo.' He was right. There was plenty
of time and plenty of buffalo before us.

We set out shortly after nine — the old commandant leading
— six or seven men on ragged-looking but very serviceable
American army horses. The course taken led across the dead
level prairie which surrounded the fort towards a low line of
sandy ridges due south. Our two bulls had vanished. Nothing
but our own seven or eight horses moved within the wide
circle of our vision.

We were now at the foot of the sandy ridge, and five or six
miles from the fort. The commandant stopped. ' Colonel,'
he said, again revertmg to service form, ' Colonel, ride up that
slope ; before you get quite to the top of it take some place
where grass is growing, so as to let you look over without
showing your heads ; get the shooting irons ready, and then
I give the word "go." '

We did as he directed, approached the top of the hill cauti-
ously, and looked over. Before or since I never saw the equal
of that sight, and, what is more, no man can ever see it again.
The ridge on which we rode dropped down at the far side
into a prairie that quite dwarfed that over which we had come ;
but the sight that struck us with astonishment was not the
vastness of the scene, but the immensity of the animal life
that covered it. From a spot three or four hundred yards
from where we stood, far off to a remote horizon where sky

94 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

and prairie came together on a line that was visible to us only
by the small black specks of life that were on it, a vast herd
of grazing buffaloes stretched away to the south ; huge animals
in the foreground, gradually lessening in size as the middle
distance was reached, and then dwindling down into the faint
specks I have spoken of. A rifle bullet might have reached
the nearest of the herd ; two hours' hard riding would not have
carried you to the farthest animal where the earth limit was
a line of buffalo backs. The commandant gave the word, and
over the top of the hill we went spreading out to right and left,
as we rode down the other side. The mass of animals was so
vast that there was no picking or choosing of group or ground.

It was strange to see the wave of alarm pass from the edge
of the vast herd that was nearest to us, on through the mass
itself. The buffalo has (or we should say had, for he is now
practically an extinct animal) a way of throwing himself away
to the right or left from the heavy forepart of his body, pivoting
as it were on his fore legs, and swinging the remainder of his
body to either side. In an incredibly short space of time the
part of the herd we could see was in motion straight away
from our advance, ploughing at full gallop over the prairie.
It was now a case of each man for himself. I was soon
at the heels of a very big old bull, tearing at full gallop
after him. The commandant had given us each a short and
handy Spencer carbine, the then cavalry arm in the United
States Army. It loaded through the butt, by an action of the
trigger guard ; the magazine held seven cartridges ; and as the
process of reloading was easily effected in the saddle, it formed
a very handy weapon in attack, pursuit, or retreat. All these
a buffalo hunt afforded.

When my particular bull found that he was outpaced, he
began to swing from side to side in his gallop, so as to eye his
pursuer first from one eye and then from the other. I took
advantage of one of these side surges to give him a shot, the
only effect of which was that he planted his forefeet well in
the hght soil of the prairie, and pivoting as I have said, swung
round upon me in a second. It was now my turn to fly and
his to pursue ; but again finding I had ' the legs of him,' he
swerved again and made off after the still flj'ing herd. It was
some little time before I caught him up again and got a second

THE AMERICAN TYPE 95

shot at him, and again came the same tactics and the same
result. At last, after a couple of miles had been run, and some
four or five shots fired, he turned for the last time, pawed the
ground, bellowed, and fell on his knees to the ground.

I had now time to look around ; a change had come upon
the scene in that two-mile gallop. ^ly companions were not
visible on any side. The great herd was still careering south,
and from out its dust came the sounds of a few distant shots.
I continued the pursuit, and soon came up again with the
nearest animals. They were all bulls — some old, some young.
The same firing, charge, and pursuit were again enacted, and
another big buU was on the ground. The tail and the tongue
were taken, one as a trophy, the other for the table, and again
the chase went on southwards ; then fatigue of horse and man
called a halt, and after a rest one turned back towards the
north to look for the ridge from which the fort would be visible.
Some of our party came together at the ridge, others turned
up singly, and in the evening we were all united at the fort.

At this time Nebraska was still a Territory of the United
States. Settlement had not yet penetrated into these great
wilds. Indians and buffalo were still numerous ; and the line
of forts from the Missouri westward was maintained for the
protection of the line of real conquest, the railwaj^ which had
now reached this central spot of the United States on its
progress to the Pacific. The four years' Civil War had arrested
for a time the opening up of this vast region, and now the wave
of settlement was in motion again, with a force, a directness,
an energy, and, I might add, a sense of empire, to aU of which
the long and costly war seemed only to have added strength
and power.

What impressed me most strangely about the men I now
came in contact with was the uniformity of the type which
America was producing — ^northern, southern, eastern, western,
miner, hotel-keeper, steamboat-man, raihoad-man, soldier,
officer, general, — the mould was the same. ' There has got
to be ' seemed to be the favourite formula of speech among
them all, whether it was the setting up of a saloon, the bridging
of a river, or the creation of a new State. ' There has got to
be ' this railway, this drinking bar, this city, this State of the
Union. Nobody dreamt, except when he slept ; everybody

96 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

acted while he was awake. They drank a good deal, but you
seldom saw a man drunk, and you never saw anybody dead
drunk. They sometunes shot each other, they never abused
each other ; they were generous, open-hearted, full of a dry
humour, as manly as men could be ; rough, but not rude ;
civil, but never servile ; proud of their country and boastful
of it and of themselves. That day and evening, and all the
other days and evenings I spent at Fort Kearney, were the
same — good fellowship, good stories round the festive board
at night, hard riding and hunting aU day over the glorious
prairies.

The accommodation of the fort was limited, and we four
visitors had one room for sleeping in. At about six o'clock
every mornmg the fort doctor used to enter this room with a
demijohn of Bourbon whisky on his shoulder, from which he
poured four doses of ' medicine ' for the guests. ' It will wake
you, boys,' he would say ; and sometimes when his gait was not
quite as steady as it had been previous to the dinner-hour of
the evening before, he would lurch forward a little while he
was preparing to pour the prescription into a tumbler, and
send a liberal dose of it over the bed-clothes. ' It will do you
no harm, boys,' he would then say ; ' it 's good outside
and inside.' Later in the day he compounded several other
draughts from his demijohns, the secrets of which he told us
he had discovered when he served on the Upper Mississippi ;
but I do not remember to have ever detected the flavour of
that or of any other water in any of these many compounds.

Before returning to the Missouri we visited North Platte,
the extreme point to which the Pacific Railway then ran.
Civilisation, as it moves west, is compelled to halt at intervals,
rest itself, and collect its stragglers before it moves on again.
The construction of the line was proceedmg at the rate of four
miles a day, so the termmal station was constantly moving on,
and the strangest part of this condition of movement was the
effect it had upon the motley crowd of saloon society which
had congregated to supply the wants of the army of navvies,
constructors, engineers, etc., at work at this point. These
people moved like the baggage carriers of an Indian column,
carrying on their own backs, in waggons, or on the backs of
animals the household gods (or demons) of their various trades.

THE COMING CHANGE 97

At North Platte we found a distinguished officer of the army
in command, Colonel Dodge, one of the foremost frontier men
of his time, and the descendant of officers who had prepared the
road for the army of settlement in the West. He was a mighty
hunter too, and had killed every variety of big game from the
Rocky Mountains to the Missouri. We told him of the week's
hunting we had had on the Platte prairies. More than thirty
buffalo bulls had been shot by us, and I could not but feel
some qualms of conscience at the thought of the destruction
of so much animal life ; but Colonel Dodge held different views.
* Kill every buffalo you can,' he said ; ' every buffalo dead is
an Indian gone.' It sounded hard then, and it seems hard
now ; but seven years after this time I crossed by railway
from California to New York, and looking out at this same
Platte valley I saw it a smilmg plain of farms, waving crops,
and neat homesteads. The hungry crowd from overcharged
Europe had surged into settlement over the old buffalo pastures
of the Platte. ' Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth.' It was right. These Crows, Cheyennes, Sioux,
and Blackfeet Indians were no doubt splendid hunters, and
fierce raiders, and crafty foemen, but no man could say they
were meek.

CHAPTER VII

A new conception of life. In charge of the ' Look Outs.' Montreal and
Quebec. Home. Father's death. A hopeless outlook in the army.

We were back in Omaha again. I was the paymaster of the
party, and carried the purse. It was Hterally a bag bulky
and weighty with greenbacks and a depreciated silver currency
at that time used in the States. To avoid the dual dangers
of carrying it with one in this rowdiest of Western cities, and
of leaving it in one's trunk in the hotel, I tried a middle course
one evening by concealing the bag inside a large shooting boot
placed casually in the trunk. Then we went out with our
United States Army friends to do the sights of Omaha. It
was late when we got back to the hotel, and I was tired and
sleepy. Before getting into bed, I bethought me of having
my boots cleaned, and never thinking of the bag of money
hidden in one of them, I took the boots from the trunk and
put them outside ray door in the passage. Next morning I
awoke to an instant consciousness of what I had done. To
make certain, I sprang out of bed and went to the trunk :
there were no boots in it. ' Molloj^' I said to my room com-
panion, ' we are ruined ; we have no money, I have lost
the purse.' Then I opened the door and looked out : there
stood the boots cleaned. It was not always a certainty that
you would find them thus poHshed ; but unfortunately, as it
seemed to me, on this occasion the negro boot-boy had come
along in the night and done his duty. I stooped down ; the
bag was in the boot ; but was there anything in the bag ?
That was the question. ' Molloy,' I said to my friend, ' the
bag is still in the boot ' ; but here I stopped, because the poor
fellow was leaning on his elbow, just awake, and regarding me
with an expression of face that plainlj'-; told me he thought
I was quite mad. I opened the bag. Out came the bundle
of greenbacks, out came the depreciated dollars and other

98

THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW 99

currency ; all there untouched to the last ' red cent.' I had
scarcely finished countmg the money when the door opened
and a wooUy-headed black appeared. ' Boots ! ' he ejaculated
in a frightened manner, and then vanished. That much
elucidation of the mystery I got, and no more. The only
explanation I could arrive at afterwards was that some youth-
ful understudy in the blacking business of the hotel had got
the boots in the first instance, and finding the bag of dollars
in the boot when he was cleaning it, had been frightened at the
discovery, and thought it better to replace them at the room
door as if nothing unusual had been discovered ; that, later
on in the morning, he had related his strange experience to the
head boss black bootblack ; and that that functionary had
rushed at once to the door of the room where we were, only to
find the boots inside the door instead of outside, hence his wild
ejaculation and rapid exit.

Returning by the route we had come, we had a few days'
excellent wild-bird shooting in Iowa, and got further experience
of the settlement of the West in what might be called the second
line of the army of invasion. Iowa was one of the States
which had adopted the law known far and wide as the Maine
Liquor Law. No intoxicating hquors could be bought or
served within the Hmits of the State except by order of a doctor.
On the evening of our arrival at the Kttle town of Boone, a
leading citizen came to visit us. He was friendly and familiar
from the first, and he made no secret of the object of his visit.
The prohibition law was a shameful interference with the Uberty
of the American citizen ; tea was not a beverage upon which
the hunter could successfully pursue his vocation, and there-
fore he had come to show us an easy means by which this in-
justice could be set right, and a door through which access
might be obtained to the hunter's proper paradise — that door
being the apothecary's. If we would enter the apothecary's
shop that evening, ask for a small bottle of Perry's pain-killer,
he, our visitor, would be in an inner room behind the shop ;
a prescription would be duly prepared by him, for ' he was a
member of the medical profession,' and the apothecary would
do the rest. We would only have to sit round and swallow
the draughts thus prescribed for us.

We did as we were told, and soon found ourselves in an inner

100 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

apartment of the apothecary's residence, in which some eight
or ten persons were abeady assembled, excellent patients all
of them ; they took their physic without a wrj'- face. Instead
of the bottle's being shaken before it was taken, it was the
patient who underwent the shaking process, in repeated con-
vulsions of laughter, after he had swallowed the compound.

As at Omaha, we found that the high rank with which we
had been invested upon our arrival soon underwent reduction.
We were all colonels, some of us even generals, at the commence-
ment of the examination and when the prescription was being
written ; but when we had paid our fees and were about to
quit the professional room, our medical adviser whispered,
' To-morrow evening at the same hour, boys ! ' But we were
far away to the north after the duck, the wavies, and prairie
fowl when the next evening came. These men were largely
ex-soldiers who had served under Grant or Sherman, and who
had come out West when the war was over. They were very
fine fellows, despite the little idiosyncrasies and failings to which
I have aUuded.

Youth does not concern itself much with tracing back facts
to causes : it accepts the facts it sees ; the causes can keep.
\Vhen I look back now upon that tremendous struggle through
which America passed in the early 'sixties, I can see in it
many things which were not then visible. It seems to me
that the back of human nature must always be ridden by some-
body. Victor Hugo in his breakfast-room thought that these
riders would eventually be dismounted and driven out : I
cannot think that hope wDl ever be fulfilled. Meanwhile I
have come to believe that the soldier is not always the worst
rider that human society can put into its saddle.

When we returned to Western Canada, the beautiful season
known as ' the Fall ' was still in being, and the woods were
glorious in all the colours of their dying foliage. But that
was soon over, and November brought fogs and chills from the
great lakes by which the peninsula of Upper Canada is almost
surrounded. It would be difficult to picture a more desolate
scene than the aspect presented by a Canadian half-cleared
forest landscape when the leaves are gone and the snow has
not yet come. Gloom has followed close upon the heels of
glory ; the wreck of the forest lies on every side in fallen

A CANADIAN FOREST 101

trunks and blackened remnants ; the remaining squares of
uncut forest trees stand bare and leafless, flinging out great
ragged branches into the cleared spaces, as though they were
stretching arms of sorrow over the graves of their fallen com-
rades. The settler has here fought this forest giant for forty
years ; the battle is now over ; the newcomer is the victor ;
but the dead still lie unburied, and the twilight of the coming
winter is closing upon the battlefield. Here and there, at long
intervals, the log-shanties of lately arrived immigrants are seen
interspersed with the more comfortable frame-homesteads of
the older inhabitants. The fight which has cumbered the
ground with the dead giants of the forest has at least given
to these homesteads a spoil of the finest firewood for defence
against the rigours of a Canadian winter. At the time I speak
of, practicable roads were few in this region. They were of
three kinds — ' gravel,' ' corduroy,' and ' concession ' roads, the
latter being only the surface of the ground cleared of wood.
The corduroy roads were of rough trees laid together over
swamps and boggy places. The gravel roads were alone
possible for travel at all seasons. One of these gravel roads
led from Brantford south-east towards Lake Erie, following
the high left bank of the Grand River to the little port of
Maitland. During my absence on the prairies an old veteran.
Colonel Cotter, who had been in the 69th Regiment sixty-five
years earher, visited the regiment in Brantford. He lived now
on the shore of Lake Erie, some forty miles from Brantford.
He had fought as a captain at Quatre Bras and at Waterloo,
and had even served in the short war in Travancore (of which
I have spoken in Chapter iv.) in 1809. I was now engaged
in completing a history of my regiment, begun at Aldershot
two years earlier, so I was very anxious to meet this old veteran
with as little delay as possible. At eighty years of age the
sand is running out of Life's hour-glass very quickly. I set
out for Port Maitland. Twenty miles from Brantford a little
wooden town stood on the north side of the Grand River,
called Caledonia. At this village settlement a long wooden
bridge crossed the Grand River, and at the farthest side an
Indian reserve had been marked off in the forest for the
remnants of the once powerful Six Nation Tribes,

I have described at some length the aspect of that particular

102 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

spot in Western Canada as I saw it in the early winter of 1867.
I was at that time full of energy, of a boundless desire to do
something. Nothing tired me, nor damped the ardour that
was in me ; but a distinct and single purpose of life I had not.
To go seemed enough ; it did not matter where. Here amid
the desolate scener}" on the Grand River a new conception of
life seemed all at once to open before me. I must achieve a
definite thing. When that resolve is once fixed deep and solid
in the mind, the opportunity is certain to come.

I found the old veteran 69th officer in a very dreary domicile
at Lake Erie. Although he had been so long away from home,
and was so far removed from those early years of service in
India and Belgium, his mind was clear and his memory of the
campaign of Waterloo was most retentive. As we sat that
night over the fire, he told me of many episodes in those
famous distant days. He described the rush of the Cuirassiers
in the rye-field at Quatre Bras, the retreat next day upon
Waterloo, and the night of rain and mud. * It was so cold,'
he said, ' and as the ground was ankle-deep in mud, I preferred
to stand and walk about rather than to lie down. Soon after
daybreak I was ordered to take my company to the village
of Waterloo, to mount guard at the inn occupied by the Duke
of Wellington. As we marched along the front of our line,
the soldiers were busy drying, cleaning, and snapping off their
firelocks which had rusted during the night. Arrived at the
inn I drew up in front, and stood at ease. Presently an
A.D.C. came out and told me to return to the regiment, as
the Duke was about to leave his quarters for the field.
Shortly after I got back the first gun was fired from the
French position.'

Many other little episodes he spoke of, the following among
them.

When the 69th had formed up in column, a commissariat
waggon drove up with a supply of rum for issue to the men ;
and with it came the quartermaster, Matthew Stevens, the
same man who at St. Vincent, eighteen years earher, had broken
the stern gallery of the San Nicholas and led the way for
Nelson to the quarter-deck of the Spanish vessel. When the
rum was serving out, a round shot struck the waggon and carried
off the head of a pioneer employed at it. ' Weel noo/ said the

LIEUTENANT REDVERS BULLER 103

quartermaster gravely, ' it "s aboot time for a peaceable non-
combatant like myself to gang awa/

It was strange to hear on the shore of Lake Erie in Canada,
from the lips of this veteran, these old stories of the great
battle fought on the plains of Belgium fifty-two years earlier.
But the stories were not all of Waterloo. He described at
length an encounter forced upon him on his return to his
native County Cork after Waterloo. Some local hero of duelling
celebritj- determined to try his mettle at twenty paces, near
MaUow. The challenge was, of course, accepted, the whole
countryside flocked to witness the fight, and a field of a couple
of thousand spectators was ranged in two long lines, extending
far on either side of the combatants. Shots were exchanged,
no one was hit, honour was satisfied, and shouts and shillelaghs
rent the air.

Cotter had entered the 69th in 1804. Like many other
officers, he settled in Western Canada after the close of the
war, and had remained there ever since.

But the strangest part had to come. Six months after this
interview, on the 18th June 1868, the old gentleman came to
see his former regiment, then in London, Canada West ; and
we put him standing between the colours in the front rank,
exactly fifty-three years after he had stood in square with them
at Waterloo. He died a few months later.

These military settlers had not been happy or fortunate in
their new homes. The glamour of the forest life, as it appeared
in the pages of a romance, was a very different thing from
its actual reahty in the backwoods of the West. The greater
number of these old soldiers drifted into the towns or came
back to Europe. Some of them perished miserably in the
backwoods.

In the spring of 1868 I was appointed officer in charge of
the ' Look Out ' on the Canadian frontier, in succession to
Lieutenant Redvers BuUer of the 60th Rifles, who had held the
billet for more than a year. Thus began an acquaintance
which lasted upwards of forty years, and which was destined
to run through many distant lands and strange scenes. At
this time Redvers Buller was the best type of the regimental
officer possible to be found. Young, active, daring, as keen
for service as he was ready to take the fullest advantage of it,

104 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

he stood even then in the front rank of those young and ardent
spirits who might be described as the ruck of army Ufe which
is waiting to get through. We had met at Brantford during one
of his monthly visits to the * Look Outs.' These were small,
detached parties of old and reUable soldiers, selected from the
regiments in Western Canada, and placed at certain points
along the frontier for the purpose of intercepting deserters
to the United States.

Early in May 1868 I relieved Buller of this frontier duty.
Needless to say that the work was congenial to me in every
respect. I had to visit the various posts along the frontier
once in every month. They were about fifteen in number,
some in places that could be reached only by road, and in the
circuit of the whole entailing a round of about fifteen hundred
miles each month. The circle, which had London as its centre,
embraced forts on Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, and Lake Erie,
thence inland to Caledonia, and northward to Paris, Stratford,
and Adelaide.

Summer was now over the land, and the forest country was
as beautiful m June as before in November it had been dreary.
To the west of London great tracts were still in forest, and
through these the railway ran in a vast avenue, cut deep and
straight through woods of beech and maple. South of the line
at a place named Watford, a region known as the Brooke
Swamp extended for miles. It had the reputation of holding
deer, and it was said that even a few bears were stiU to be
found in it. I determined to explore it. In the inn at Watford
I was directed to the house of an inhabitant who was said to be
the village sportsman. Yes, he knew the swamp, and he had
heard of that bear. So we started together next morning.
In the evening we had reached a log-hut in which a couple
of lumbermen were at work. We slept there, and spent all the
next day from morning to night seeking anything we could
get, and finding neither deer nor bears. In the afternoon
we happened to meet a soUtary Indian hunter ; my friend
the village sportsman shook his fist at the lone stranger and
cursed him. ' What has he done to injure you ? ' I asked.
' Injure me ! ' he answered, ' the devil will never stop until he
has killed that bear.' ' But the bear is as much his as it is
ours,' I said ; ' probably that poor devil's ancestors have

A PROPOSED SPECULATION 105

hunted bears in this forest ever since it has been a forest.'
' Wall, I wouldn't leave a red-skin alive in the land if I had
my way,' he answered. Here in this Canadian backwood
as in the prairies of the Platte, twelve hundred miles farther
west, the sentiment was precisely the same.

I got back to Watford very tired after this fruitless chase
of three days, and was glad to find in the little wooden inn
supper ready. At the table with me there sat a curious-
looking man of that peculiar type of American known as the
' down-Easter ' — sharp, determined, of restless eye, straight
upper lip, and firm-set lower jaw. ' Stranger,' he said, after
a bit, * you 'ave bin to the Brooke Swamp ; now don't tell me
'twas arter bars j^'ou were for three days in that darned hole.
No, sirree, 'twas arter lumber, or petroleum oil, or some other
fixen, I guess you were. I don't want to go into that thar
swamp myself, for I 've got a wife and family ; but as sure as
my name is Horatio Nelson Case, thar 's money in that swamp,
and you 've bin arter it those three days.' It was with con-
siderable difficulty that I could persuade my chance companion
that it was a real live ' bar,' and not a bar of gold I had been
after ; and then I think the very absurdity of the idea seemed
to strike him as so original that he quite ' cottoned to me,' as
being entirely out of his own line in thought and action. He
first told me every detail of his own life and family — who his
wife was, the number of children they had, the various occu-
pations he had filled, and he finally wound up by asking if I
was disposed to join him in a speculation which would have
for the theatre of its effort this same swamp of Brooke ? He
had been told that, back in the swamp, there were fine ridges
of higher ground which bore heavy timber ; and he was very
desirous of getting some trustworthy information upon these
tracts of higher ground. I told him that what he had been told
was correct ; there were many such ridges well- timbered, where
the land was as dry as that on which the village stood. This
seemed to banish the last shred of doubt from his mind. If I
had had speculative outlooks regarding the swamp, I should
have kept this knowledge to myseK : I might be a fool, but
it was clear I was not a knave. He ended by proposing a
joint partnership in the purchase of some thousand acres in
the so-caUed swamp. I was to find the money ; he would

106 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

furnish the brains. I told him I didn't like the arrangement ;
that it was liable to end in his getting all my money, and in
my having only a portion of his brains. This seemed to tickle
his fancy. We exchanged names and addresses, and I left
Watford at midnight with a large card in my pocket on which
was printed Horatio Nelson Case, Postmaster, City, Ont. A
few weeks later I received a letter from Horatio, proposing
another scheme for my consideration. It was the purchase
of a square block of forest lying further to the west in the
neighbourhood of a place called Petrolia, where oil in some
quantity had already been discovered. Horatio had visited
this new oil field, and had fixed up in his mind some distinct
theories about it. The forest was so dense that it was not at
all easy to determine the general set and direction of the sub-
terranean oil stream which had been tapped here and there ;
but his observations had led him to think that the trend of the
oil was in the direction of this square of forest -land, which he
proposed to acquire at a cost of eight hundred pounds. Had
I that sum of money ? No. Not in the least disconcerted
by this negative, he asked how much I could command.
Perhaps four hundred. Was there any other officer in the
regiment who would be willing to put down a similar sum ?
I went to the ground and saw for myself the correctness of the
general idea upon which he was working. The well in which
oil had been struck did seem to follow a rough sort of line
through the trees. If you stood at one end of the hideous
line of scaffolding, which marked the mouth of a well, you saw
that while to the right or left of that line wells were doing little,
the general continuation of the line had along it more pros-
perous borings. Our proposed block of two hundred acres
lay on that line of continuation about a mile deeper in the
forest. The end of the matter was that another officer joined
me in this oil venture ; and Horatio Nelson Case, Lieut. W. F.
Butler, and Ensign Albert P. Wodehouse became the joint
owners of two hundred acres of forest in the vicinity of Petrolia,
Ontario, sometime in the early part of 1869,

Before the purchase could be effected, however, the regiment
had moved from London to Montreal. My delightful roving
occupation at the ' Look Out ' was over, and I was once more
' cribbed, cabined, and confined ' within the limits of a big

WIDER HORIZONS 107

city in the depth of a Lower Canadian winter. As soon as I
could obtain leave, I was back again in Western Canada.
Horatio was more sanguine than ever. The line of wells in
which oil had been struck was slowly but steadily drawing
nearer to our dark block in the forest. Only two other blocks
of forest-land now intervened between our possession and the
latest find in the new oil field. The money must be got at once,
or all our anticipations would be dashed to pieces.

The tendency to change the stations of our regiment still
clung to us, and in the spring of 1869, while I was still in the
West, we were moved from Montreal to Quebec.

I rejoined at the latter place in June. Two years had not
elapsed since I had landed there for the first time ; but what a
change had these few months wrought in the aspect of life to
my mind !

This America was a great mind-stretcher. All these lakes,
these immense prairies, these deep forests, these rivers of which
the single lengths are greater than the width of the ocean be-
tween Canada and Europe ; all the throbbing of the life that one
saw everywhere, on road and river, in the cities, on the plains ;
this great march that was ever going on — all seemed to call with
irresistible voice to throw one's little lot into the movement.
It all seemed the exact opposite of the profession to which at
this time I had given ten years of my life. There one seemed
to be going round in a circle ; here the line of march was
straight to the west. I had seen a sunset over the prairies of
Nebraska, and the dream of it was ever in my mind — a great
golden mist, a big river flowing from it, a dark herd of buffaloes
slowly moving across the prairie distance to drink at the
river, and the sun himself seeming to linger above the horizon
as though he wanted to have a longer look at the glory he had
made below.

In my ' Look Out ' wanderings I had frequently to visit a
little lake — the Blue Lake — which lay in the forest a few miles
north-west of Brantford. I had a cotton-wood canoe and a
tent, and with these in possession youth has a * free pass '
wherever water flows, or trees grow. The Blue Lake was a
very beautiful spot ; no one had built above its shores or bored
beneath them ; the larger forest trees were mostly gone, but
another growth had sprung up, and the sheet of clear blue

108 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

winding water lay in as perfect repose and reflection of shore
and foliage as though no white man had ever placed his burden
upon the land of Canada.

I determined to cross the Atlantic ; raise the four hundred
pounds necessary to begin a partnership with Horatio Nelson
Case ; and, even if we failed to strike oil, to strike out some
line in life other than that military one which, so far, seemed
to lead to nothing.

I sailed from Quebec early in September in the Moravian.
We took the northern channel between Newfoundland and
Labrador, saw lots of icebergs after passing Belleisle, and
reached Ireland after the usual rough passage. I have sailed
in many good and bad vessels in my time, but I can truthfully
declare that I never sailed with a bad sea-captain. I do
not mean only in the mere sense of his profession ; I mean
the man himself. He is the very best man this Empire pro-
duces ; the salt of the sea and the soul of the land are in him.
He is as superior to the men by whom he is employed as the
army ofi&cer is better than his departmental chief, and the
naval officer is above his official admmistrator. These three
classes of captains stand for the honour of English commerce,
the fame of England's arms by land, and her naval superiority
at sea. Men may cozen in the counting-house, be witless at
the War Office, and play Dreadnoughts or Donnybrook in
Whitehall ; but if England holds on to her captains by sea
and land she will pull through in the end. In the Services
the servants have ever been better than the masters.

After my arrival at home, I made every effort I could think
of to prevent what was then looked upon as the worst of pro-
fessional disasters from happening to me — namely, being pur-
chased over by junior subalterns for the rank of captain. It
was useless. At that time I had neither friends at the Horse
Guards, nor money at the bankers'. My father was in very
bad health ; my colonel was a complete military nonentity ;
my captain, once a very able man, was getting softening of
the brain, and had been obliged to retire from the service.
Altogether, the outlook was about as hopeless as it could weU
be ; and to crown the catalogue of misfortune, a long space
of regimental stagnation in promotion had just broken, and
many purchase steps in rank were going.

PARIS IN HER GLORY 109

With some difficulty I was able, through the kindness of
relations, to raise the four hundred pounds required by Horatio
Nelson Case for the purchase of the block of forest-land at
Petrolia ; but whether that venture was destined to pour oil
upon the troubled waters of my fortune, or to add yet another
item to the already long list of professional calamities, had still
to be proved.

In the midst of those disappointments I received an urgent
message from my old captain, then residing in England, to go
to him. I found him in a deplorable condition of mental
illness. He who had been a model of all the military virtues,
a strict disciplinarian, and a most high-minded gentleman,
was now filled with the wildest delusions. His friends could
do notliing with him. To relieve the strain upon his family,
and to try what change of scene would do in his case, it was
proposed that he and I should go to Paris. We proceeded
thither. At first everything went well. It was my first visit
to the French capital, and my poor friend appeared to take
pleasure in showing the sights to me. In December 1869
Paris W£is in the meridian hour of her glory ; Baron Haussmann
had put the finishing touches to the great streets and edifices
of the Second Empire. I shall never forget the effect of the
blaze of light which the Place de la Concorde presented as we
turned mto it on a clear frosty December night, the last of the
year, an hour after our arrival from dull, grimy, leaden London.
All the long lines of sparkling streets radiated from this brilliant
centre ; the Imperial Court was in residence at the Tuileries,
and the windows of that famous palace shone through the
leafless trees.

We turned into the Place Vendome, and stood at last at the
foot of the Roman column, with all the bronze of Austerlitz
wreathed round it, and the figure of the great captain dimly
discernible in the starHght above. To-morrow the first visit
of daylight would be made to his tomb beyond the river. It
all seemed so real on that closing night of the old year ; and
yet aU this panorama of pride and power, seemingly fixed
and soHd as the earth upon which it stood, had at that moment
little more than six months' lease of life.

Less than a year and a half later I was destined to stand
in this Place de la Concorde again, and to see the palaces in

no SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

smouldering ashes, the statues rent with cannon-shot, and
the great column and its mighty figure lying prone in the dust
of the Place Vendome. But that is anticipating.

The mental affliction, which seemed at first to have calmed
down in my poor friend, soon began to show itself again. One
night we had come back to our hotel in the Rue St. Honore
from the Porte St. Martin theatre, and had retired to our
rooms. I occupied a room inside that in which my old captain
slept. We were speaking to each other through the doorway,
and some trifling difference of opinion had arisen in our con-
versation. Suddenly he raised his voice and shouted, ' Now
I '11 have it out with you for bringing my brother over from
Cork.' (When his iUness had reached an acute stage a fort-
night earlier in England, I had thought it necessary to telegraph
for his only brother, who was in garrison in Ireland.) Then
1 heard a thud on the floor of the outer room, the door was
flung open, and in came my old commander, mad with rage,
and shouting, ' I '11 throw you out of the wmdow.'

I was a much younger as well as a stronger man, and quickly
as he had come I was out of bed and on the floor ready for
him. He came to within a few feet of where I stood, then
stopped short, rushed to the window, flung it open, crying,
' I '11 throw myself out.' The drop looked ugly, for we were
two or three floors up, and the courtyard below was hardly
visible in dim lamplight. Then he rushed back to his room.
Next morning he met me as though nothing had happened.
But I had had enough of the undertaking now : we squared up
accounts, and I left Paris. A few days later the poor fellow
got into an altercation with a Frenchman, whom he accused of
having pushed against him as they were leaving the door of
some theatre. My friend drew a sword from a cane which he
carried, and lunged at the Frenchman, who fortunately received
the blade through his gibus-hat. That matter was settled in
some way or other ; but a night or two later he joined a demon-
stration got up by the partisans of the then celebrated Victor
Noir, and he was promptly arrested by the police and lodged
in Mazas Prison. He never recovered his right reason. Nearly
forty years later I had a curious confirmation of the character
borne by my old commander in his early days. Lord Roberts
said to me one day, ' You were in the 69th Regiment. You

FATHER'S DEATH 111

must have known my old schoolfellow .' ' Yes, sir ; he

was my captain for ten years.' ' When I went to school at
Clifton,' continued the commander-in-chief, ' he was the best
boy in the school. The headmaster said to me when I went

there, " Follow the example set by . I might talk a long

time to you, but I could not say more. Do as he does." '

When I returned to Ireland I found that my father's health
had grown worse. Two months later he passed quietly away,
and we laid him in the old churchyard of Killardrigh, by the
banks of the river and at the foot of the Galtee mountain,
both of which he had lived beside and had loved all his long
life.

The ruined church at Killardrigh was said to have been
named after a high king of Ireland, an ' Ard High,' who met his
death in the seventh century while bathing in the waters of
the Suir. If the story be true, then a second king among
men was laid in that lone graveyard in March 1870.

I had now to return to my regiment in Canada. No '. Look-
outs ' there, and no outlooks anywhere else. Regimental
promotion had begun, but it was not for me : the steps were
all by purchase. I made a last attempt on the Horse Guards,
and was kindly informed by a very choleric old Peninsular
MiUtary Secretary, who had a terrible reputation for vocabular
vehemence to old officers (but whom on this and other occasions
I found particularly gracious to young ones), that I had not
a ghost of a chance. Then I sailed for America.

CHAPTER Vin

The Red River Expedition. Under Colonel Wolseley. Fenians. The
purchase system. No step after twelre years' service. Paris. The end
of the Commune.

It was not quite correct to say that I had no mihtary outlook
at this time. There was a remote chance that a disturbance
which had arisen on the banks of the Red River, in Manitoba,
might develop into some occasion of active service. The news-
papers had already announced that regular troops would be
sent from Canada to Winnipeg in the coming summer. The
commander of the Uttle expedition, Colonel Wolseley, had been
named. I had met him once or twice in Montreal, but only
in the sense in which a subaltern without any record can meet
a colonel who has a very distinguished one. I sat next him at
an inspection dinner one evening, and when, in his capacity as
Chief of the Quartermaster-General's Department in Canada,
he had called for specimen sketches from regimental ofl&cers in
order to select men for the Survey Service in Upper Canada,
I had sent in two drawings, the very indifferent artistic quality
of which I had endeavoured to compensate for by the geo-
graphical and historical associations I had connected with
them. One was a plan of the cantonment in Tonghoo in
Burmah, the other of the field of Waterloo ; neither had suc-
ceeded. I was not among the selected surveyors. This,
however, did not prevent my sending a cable message from
Ireland when I saw that Colonel Wolseley was named com-
mander of the expedition to the Red River. Among the many
vices which the ocean cable has introduced into the world, it
has at least one virtue — the absent can sometimes be almost
right. On this occasion my long shot hit its mark, and although
I did not know that I had struck the target at Ottawa, I fol-
lowed the shot as soon as possible. The longer the range the
more likely is it that somebody may rub out the hit before

112

COLONEL WOLSELEY 113

you can get to the marking butt. This, indeed, had ahnost
happened. Everybody wanted to get on this expedition,
which, small as it was in numbers, had such an immense
* beyond ' in it, a beyond into which steam power did not enter,
where there were no roads, where there were still real live
Indians and great silent lakes, vast woods and rushing rivers,
and, more than these, boats and canoes in which brams would
be at the helm, skill at the prow, and youth and muscle working
at the oars.

Travelling via New York, I reached Torontv") just in time to
find Colonel Wolseley still there. He was to start for Lake
Superior the following day ; all the staff officers had been ap-
pointed ; there was ' no berth vacant,' he said. I suggested
one : that of an Intelligence officer who, travelling through the
United States, might perhaps be able to get to the column in
some part of the last three hundred of the six hundred miles
lying between Lake Superior and the Red River. He caught
at the idea, directed me to proceed to Montreal at once, and see
General Lindsay there, adding that he would write that night
to him.

At this time Colonel Wolseley was in the prime of manhood,
somewhat under middle height, of weU-knit, well-proportioned
figure ; handsome, clean-cut features, a broad and loity fore-
head over which brown chestnut hair closely curled ; exceed-
ingly sharp, penetratmg blue eyes, from one of which the
bursting of a shell in the trenches at Sebastopol had extin-
guished sight without in the least lessening the fire that shot
through it from what was the best and most briUiant brain
I ever met in the British army. He was possessed of a courage
equal to his brain power. It could be neither daunted nor
subdued. His body had been mauled and smashed many
times. In Burmah a gingall bullet fired within thirty yards
of him had torn his thigh into shreds ; in the Crimea a shell
had smashed his face, and blinded an eye ; but no man who
rode beside Wolseley in the thirty years of active life in which
I afterwards knew him could ever have imagined that either
in his grip of a horse or his glance at a man on a battlefield,
he had only half the strength and the sight with which he had
started in life. I never knew him tired, no matter what might
be the fatigue he underwent. I never knew his eye deceived.

H

in SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

no matter how short might be the look it gave at a man or a
plan.

I went at once to Montreal, saw that fine soldier, General
Lindsay, then commanding in Canada, and found him favour-
able to my proposed appointment, the final sanction for which
rested with the civil authorities at Ottawa. Meanwhile I was
to await the answer at Montreal.

But before it came a strange Uttle event happened. While
we were all looking out fifteen hundred miles away to the
north-west, a httle flame of service sprang up, close at our
doors, fift}^ miles south from Montreal. All through the 24th
May telegrams were arriving at the headquarters office from
places on the Canadian frontier, and over the boundary line,
from Huntingdon and Hinchinbrook on our side, and from
Malone and Potsdam Junction on the other side, announcing
the arrival of bodies of armed men at, or near, the frontier.
Of course, the numbers given varied, but the fact of the gather-
ings could not be doubted. The news came from our own
people near the frontier, and from men in the Fenian ranks
on the other side, among the latter being a man who years
later, under the name of Major le Caron, became weU known
in London at the time of the Pigott Conspiracy.

The INIiHtary Secretary, Colonel Earle (afterwards killed at
Kirbekan in the Soudan), sent for me. ' We have ordered your
regiment up from Quebec. It will arrive here by train to-
morrow ; you will join it at the railway station, and proceed
with it to the frontier near Huntingdon." He showed me the
telegraphic messages received from that quarter. I wired at
once to my colonel in Quebec that I would meet him at the
railway next day with a horse ; then I went to a well-known
keeper of a hvery stable. He had a good saddle-horse — ' the
Doctor ' by name, a big chestnut animal. I secured this war-
horse for as many daj^s as might be needed, and was then
ready for any eventuahty. Later in the day I received a
telegram from the colonel appointing me Intelligence officer
to the column, which was to consist of the 69th Regiment,
and a corps of Canadian mihtia, whose headquarters were in
the town of Huntingdon, in the neighbourhood of the menaced
jDoints.

When the train carrymg the 69th Regiment arrived at the

AFTER THE FENIANS 115

Montreal station, I was there to meet it. It was pleasant to
meet old friends again, for I had been nine months away in
Europe, and there was much news to hear and to tell. I got
* the Doctor ' into a waggon ; and the train moved on, after a
short delay, for Lake St. Francis, on the north shore of which
it deposited us, bag and baggage. A couple of steamboats
were here in waiting to ferry us across to the south shore of
that beautiful lake, and from there the march to Huntingdon
began. I got ' the Doctor ' off the boat at once, and rode on
in advance to Huntingdon to gather the latest information at
that place. The distance was about eight miles, the last two
before Huntingdon was reached being over a ' corduroy '
road through a bad swamp. It was dusk when I got to Hunt-
ingdon. In the Uttle square of the town I found the militia
regiment drawn up, ready to march back to Lake St. Francis.
The staff officer attached to the regiment and the colonel of
militia had decided upon this retrograde movement in conse-
quence of reports which had reached them of the enemy's
movements at Hinchinbrook on the Trout River some six
or eight miles south, and adjacent to the American frontier.
1 had arrived at an opportune moment, for a few minutes
later the regiment would have abandoned Huntmgdon and
begun its retreat on Lake St. Francis.

I had known the staff officer at Hythe six years earUer.
He was very much my senior in rank and service ; but I
knew that to give up the town of Huntingdon would be a fatal
mistake, even had there been no regular troops advancing to
support that position. However, I had to proceed cautiously. I
was only a subaltern ; the staff officer was a major, and he
had already seen service. I asked him to come with me a httle
distance from the parade where we could not be overheard.
I first got from him the information which had decided him
to retii'e. It was generally a continuation of the news I had
heard from the Military Secretary in Montreal on the previous
day. I find ui an old notebook some of these messages : —

' To MacEachern, Huntingdon.

' " Fenians got large reinforcements last night, field-guns and
ammunition, provisions plentiful, expect fight Wednesday." Another
message reported : "Seven hundred well-armed men are at hand."

116 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Another from Malone reported : "150 Fenians here, they leave for
Trout River." Another from Potsdam stated that " two companies
Cavahy and three ear-loads of men had arrived there from Rome,
no fight before Saturday." Another from South Hinchinbrook
said : " Telegraph operator just said ' good-b3^e.' Fenians close at
hand, expect to cross frontier to-day." '

These reports from different places on the frontier showed
that Huntingdon was the point aimed at whenever the concen-
tration near the frontier was sufficient to justify a movement
over the line ; but it was easy to see also that there was not
likely to be anj" advance in force for some hours ; and in any case
it was now night, the 69th would be up in a few hours, and here
MacEachern and his merry men must remain. It was urged
that the position at Huntingdon was not a good one, that the
Seafield swamp, with onlj^ one practicable ' corduroy ' road
through it, lay immediately in rear of the little town, and that
the supply of provisions at hand would only suffice for a few
hours' consumption. These facts were all true, so far as rule
ran ; but when you put 3^our foot into that ready-made boot
it is well to have elastic sides to it.

The regiment was dismissed to their tents, and an hour or
two later the 69th marched into Huntingdon. Before I turned
in for the night a big bearded man came to me. ' I have two
or three chaps here,' he said, ' and we have horses ; we would
like to ride with you to-morrow to the line, if you 're gwyne
that way.' I liked the look of the man and his chums, and
without telling him where I was ' gwyne ' to, I said I would
meet them there in the market-place at daybreak, three hours
later.

A cold mist lay on the land as we rode out of Huntingdon
at four next morning, taking the main road south. I had the
old scout and four younger men as companions. After a couple
of miles we lessened the pace, and began to examine roads
that led to right or left. It was about six o'clock when we got
to Hinchinbrook. It was only a cross-roads with three or four
frame houses ; the mist had lifted, the sun was out, and one
could see well on either side. The post-office and telegraph
were closed ; a man came out of one of the houses, and for a
moment eyed us suspiciously ; but the scout soon made matters
straight, and we got the news, such as it was. There was a

ENCOUNTER AT TROUT RIVER 117

camp of Americans just over the border ; a few of their scouts
had been here the evening before. The border line was a mile
and a half farther ou.

I sent one of the men back with this information, sent two
more along the right and left roads, and then rode on with the
old scout to the front. We trotted, but kept on the grass
border of the road. The country was as green and fresh as the
end of May could make it ; apple-trees were in blossom, and
a strip of deep forest on the right was all in leaf. Trout River
lay at a little distance to the left ; about three-quarters of a
mile farther on a large hop field crossed the road ; the hops
were already well up the poles, affording good cover the height
of a man. We went cautiously through this cover, and still
more quietly as we approached the boundary line. There was
a bend in the road before it got to the frontier, and a skirting
of wood at the bend, then a straight bit which ran direct to the
line. The road was quite empty for five or six hundred yards
forward. We rode on to the line. It was marked by a square
stone set in the earth ; two or three houses stood in trees just
beyond the boundary on the American side. An early-rising
inhabitant or two were on foot here, but uoinformation was
to be gleaned from them.

Of course, I would not cross the line, and stiU I did not like
to go back from it without any news, so I waited with the scout,
looking up the road which ran straight on American territory
for nearly a mile. Suddenly a body of men marching in
columns of fours began to wheel out from a cross-road about
five hundred yards forward, on the right side. They came
straight for the line, arms at the slope, and the sun bright on
the ' unbrowned ' barrels of their rifles. I made them out
roughly to be about two or three hundred. Their appearance
seemed to put thought and tongue into one of the early in-
habitants. ' Them 's the boys,' he said. ' I guess you chaps
had better go back now/ The head of the column was coming
along at a brisk pace. We took the hint and cantered back
along the road we had come until we got to the bend I have
mentioned ; there we pulled up imder cover of the trees and
waited. Thinking that the advancmg ' boys ' might have
halted on the line and not entered our territory, I turned my
horse and walked him round the bend whence I could see

118 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the road to the frontier. There was no mistake. The ' bo3's '
had come along, and were within three hundred yards of me,
well within our ground. Thej' shouted something, and I saw
the rifles of the leading fours coming down to the ' ready/ I
Wheeled ' the Doctor ' on his tracks and galloped round the
bend, a few bullets going wide through the trees as I went.
We rode back to Hinchinbrook, and awaited there the arrival
of our column. It soon arrived. I showed the colonel the
ground ; there were no men on the near side of the hop field,
but as I had seen them almost up to that cover, they must be
there. The river would be on their right, the forest on their
left ; a front of half a mile lay between the two flanks. We
went forward as soon as this was explained, the 69th along the
road and in the fields on either side of it, the militia battalion
in support, some in the wood. My old compan5% No. 10, led
the advance. A new captain had it : he had purchased his
company over mj' head, but we were old and tried friends ;
besides, I was a free-lance now. and could ride where I liked,
BO I liked the old soldiers of No. 10, nearlj'- every man of whom
I knew intimately.

As we turned into the straight road leading to the hop field,
I could see that the ' snake ' fences on either side near the
hops had been taken down and the timbers made into an
obstacle across the road ; behind this fence a picket of about
a dozen men stood with rifles in their hands, and to the right
and left one could catch the glint of barrels here and there in
the green leaves of the hops. We on the road were about the
same number as the picket behind the obstacle. It was an
interesting situation. The road ran quite straight between
the two parties. We were without cover on it ; the other side
had partial cover behind the thick timber fence. All the would-
be combatants, save myself, were on foot ; the chestnut
' Doctor ' offered a good target in the bright sunshine, which
was in our faces, I wondered, indeed, why the enemy did
not give us a volley at three hundred j'^ards, low down the
straight road ; they must have hit something. ' Mansfield,'
I said to my friend, ' don't stand on ceremony, but give these
fellows a voUey at once.' The Sniders were already loaded,
and off they went in six seconds. There was a lot of powder
smoke ui those days, and plenty of scattered shooting followed

JOURNEY INTO THE WEST 119

this opening, and we all ran forward, loading and fixing bayonets
as we went. When we reached the wooden obstacle not a man
was behind it, and we raced through it, firing and cheering.
In a few minutes we were again at the boundary line : the
battle (!) of Trout River was over. We had no one killed or
wounded ; the enemy lost one man, it was said, and Colonel
MacEachern's braves had come upon an old Fenian lying in
a hole in the forest. Some United States troops appeared
next day to pohce their frontier, and send the scattered bands
of raiders back to their several cities. I had some long rides
with the scout to the west of Trout River, where other bands
of raiders had been reported, but they, too, had vanished ;
and then we marched back to Montreal. I said good-bj^e to
the scout with real regret ; he was a splendid fellow. A short
time afterwards he sent me a letter with his photograph, which
I still have. He signed the letter, ' Yours until Death, The
Scout.' In the photograph he is depicted in baggy civilian
Canadian clothes, with many pockets ; he has a large bushy
beard and a big, broad-brimmed, brown straw hat. In his
right hand he holds a large cavalry sword, m his left a pipe ;
the butt of a revolver is visible out of one of his many pockets.
I hope I may meet him in the next world. What splendid men
I have met along the thin track of my path in life ! I should
have liked to listen to the scout telling of these three or four
days' rough-riding in after years. Once only did I meet any
one who knew of Trout River. It was in a haircutter's shop
near the Haymarket. After the manner of his profession the
barber was extremely communicative. He had had a brother
in the 69th Regiment, but he had suffered so much in Canada
in the war there that he was never any good again. ' ^Vhat
war was it ? ' I asked. * The war of Trout River,' he answered ;
and then the details followed. ' The men had no food, they
lay for days and days in the forest, until they had to eat their
blankets.' I laughed so much that he suspended his operations
to stare at my reflection in the glass. There are manj^ wslyf-
of writing history.

I went to Quebec with my regiment, and waited for the reply
to the letter sent to Ottawa. It came on 7th June, and on
the 8th I began a long journey into the West.

There was one old friend to whom I had to wish good-bye.

120 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

however, before starting — Private Henry Connors of the 69th
Regiment. Before leaving Fermoy ten years earUer, Recruit
Henry Connors had been confided specially to my care by an
old couple who had come from Cork to see their son ere the
draft sailed for Burmah. From that time forward Private
Connors had been my servant. No more faithful heart ever
beat in body of man or master. He had always been dehcate
with lung trouble, and he was now d3'^ing in the regimental
hospital in Quebec. He died while I was in the West, and
when I came back I put a small stone over his nameless grave
in the military graveyard which was then outside the walls
on the historic Plains of x^ibraham. The dust of many other
good soldiers must have been there. I had cut on the stone
his name and regiment, and underneath : —

HIS master's friend
HIS friend's servant

It wasn't much, but it was true, and the meaning of the words
had memories in them that went through many distant lands.
It would be blasphemy to doubt of heaven while such souls
are found on earth.

I have told the story of the next ten months of my life in
another book,^ and I shall pass over that interval now, though
there were many things omitted from the old narrative which
might be of interest to readers of to-day, for the things seen
then, or their kind, are no more to be looked at by the eye of
man. We know that the old dodo wasn't thought much of
when he was found flopping and flapping about, four himdred
years ago ; in fact, his early discoverers called him the ' Silly.'
How people would flock to see him if he were on view in the
Zoological Gardens to-day ! Every egg would be worth a
thousand guineas. But I have a long road in front, and I
must get along it before the Hght fails.

At the time of the Red River Expedition it took three
months to get from Quebec to the Rocky Moimtains. It took
me more than two months to return by dog-sled over the snow
from the Rocky Mountain House of the Hudson Bay Com-
pany to Winnipeg alone. You can do the distance from

^ Tht Great Lone Land. (E. B.)

THE NORTH-WEST AS IT WAS 121

Quebec to the mountains now in three days. I left Quebec in
Jime, and reached the mountains in December, but there were
many side journeys made by canoe and horse and stage-coach
in the interval.

On the return journey to Canada it required a whole fort-
night to get from Winnipeg to St. Paul's, Minnesota. You
can do it now in fifteen hours. And yet that is the least part
of the change which these fort}' years have wrought. Winni-
peg, now a huge city, was then a village of thirty houses and
perhaps a hundred and fifty inhabitants. A dozen cities have
sprung into existence where buffalo roamed and Indians warred
in that day. Railways traverse the land in all directions,
and the output of grain to Europe is enormous. I open the
report which I wrote when I got back to Fort Garrj% by desire
of that admirable man, Mr. Adams Archibald, Manitoba's first
governor, and this is what I find in the concluding paragraph
of that lengthy document : —

' These, Sir, are the' views which I have formed upon the whole
question of the existing state of affairs in the Saskatchewan. They
result from the thought and experience of many long days of travel
through a large portion of the region to which they have reference.
If I were asked from what point of view I have looked upon the
question, I would answer : From that point which sees a vast
country lying, as it were, silently awaiting the approach of the
immense wave of human life which rolls unceasingly from Europe
to America. Far off as lie the regions of the Saskatchewan from
the Atlantic seaboard on which that wave is thrown, remote as
are the fertile glades which fringe the eastern slopes of the Rocky
Mountains, still that wave of human life is destined to reach these
beautiful solitudes and to convert the wild luxuriance of their no\N'
useless vegetation into all the requirements of civiHsed existence.

' And if it be matter of desire that across this immense continent
— resting upon the two greatest oceans of the world — a powerful
nation should arise, with the strength and the manhood which race,
climate, and tradition would assign to it ; a nation which would
look with no evil eye upon the old Mother-land from whence it
sprang ; a nation which, having no bitter memories to recall, would
have no idle prejudices to perpetuate, then surely it is worthy of
all toil of hand and brain on the part of those who to-day rule,
that this great link in the chain of such a future nationality should
no longer remain undeveloped, a prey to the conflicts of savage

122 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

races, afe once the garden and the wilderness of the Central
Continent.

•W. F. Butler,
' Lieutenant, 69th Regt.

' Manitoba, lOth March 1871.'

This report handed in, I started for Canada in horse-sleds
over the snow. It was slow work, not more than twenty
miles each day. I had as feUow-travellers a gentleman and his
secretary, who had been sent from the Colonial Office in London
to Winnipeg to report upon matters there, and an archdeacon,
on his way to England to collect funds for the Church Mission
in the new province of Manitoba. We slept each night in the
cabin of some Red River half-breed settler, laying our blankets
on the floor in a row, the archdeacon usually having the centre.
One night, near Pembina, the archdeacon sprang from his
couch shouting, ' They are putting guns through the window ;
they are going to fire ! ' A crash of breaking glass seemed to
confirm his alarm. I caught at the supposed gun barrel. It
was the tail of a cow. The animal had been rubbing the hind
part of her person against the small window frame, and her tail
had broken the window and our sleep together.

I reached Ottawa, travelling via the United States, in about
three weeks. My report had been received. It was the wish
of Governor Archibald that I should return to the North-West,
officially charged to take in hand the opening up of that vast
region, carrying into practical effect the principles of Indian
settlement, the establishment of a police, and the foundation
of Government stations which I had advocated in mj'^ report.

I saw the Canadian ministers, Sir John MacDonald, Sir
George Cartier, Mr. Joseph Howe, Sir Francis Hincks. They
were highly complimentary, said nice things about the three
thousand miles' travel in the wilderness, most of it through
snow and ice, and with the thermometer hovering somewhere
about the zero of Fahrenheit ; hemmed and hawed when it
came to Governor Archibald's recommendation as to the
commandantship of the North- West, and laid particular stress
upon the letter they were writing to the Colonial and the War
Offices in London on the subject of my services to Canada
generally.

At that time I took the world very much without question-

BLANK PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK 123

Lag its men or motives. Each of these excellent colonial
ministers had wives, sons, and daughters. An arm}" ofl&cer
who married a minister's daughter might perchance have been
a fit and proper person to introduce the benefits of civilisation
to the Blackfeet Indians on the Western prairies, but if he
elected to remain in single cussedness in Canada he was pretty
certain to find himself a black sheep among the ministerial
flock of aspirants for place, no matter what might have been
the value of his individual services.

I found myself almost alone in Canada : the army, with the
exception of one battalion, had been withdrawn ; my own 69th
were in Bermuda. The military leave, which had been granted
to me for the purpose of going out to the Rocky Mountains
on a civil expedition when the Red River Expedition was over,
had not yet expired. I determined to go to England.

Three weeks later I was in London. I received a similar
charming reception at the Colonial Office from the minister
of the day. Another letter expressive of ofl&cial approbation
was written, this time to the Secretary of State for War, in
relation to my services in North America ; and feeling certain
that I had now run the elusive quarry, Success, to his last
haunt, I presented myself once again at the door of the institu-
tion in Pall Mall, which, perhaps more than any other of its
kind in the capital of the Empire, might fitly inscribe over its
portals the best known words of the Inferno.

The moment was not propitious. The union under the same
roof of the office of the Commander-in-Chief with that of the
Secretary of State had just been effected. The dual wheels of
administration were not numing smoothly, and my unfortunate
case seemed to be a little bit of grit between them. I must
pay the memory of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-
Chief the justice of saying that he did his best with Mr. Cardwell
to obtain for me an unattached company. I had now twelve
years' service. I had been five or six times purchased over
by officers, most of whom were many years junior to me. I
was told by all those heads of departments, mihtary and civil,
that I had done the State some service. The reward asked for,
a half-pay company, did not seem to be a very large act of
recognition ; nevertheless, the reply came curt and chilling,
' Mr. Cardwell could not sanction the promotion of Lieutenant

124 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Butler to an unattached company, an appointment which, if
now given, would confer purchase rights/ Truly, reason is
sometimes a two-edged weapon. I who, had there been no
purchase system, must have been a captain two years ago,
must now, because they were abolishing the system, suffer
a further loss of two years before the coveted and acknow-
ledged step in rank could be given to me. I had, in fact, fallen
between two stools. The book of the Red River reward was
closed six months earUer ; the other book could not be opened
untU purcliase was abolished !

Suddenly one morning the Times announced that Paris was
in flames.

The news of war between France and Germany first reached
us on the Winnipeg River in the preceding August, and at
intervals the remote theatre of our little expedition had caught
the echoes of these colossal combats in North-Eastern France
and the investment of Paris. Then as I got farther away
from all sources of information, and the winter deepened
over the wilderness, complete silence had ensued ; but on 20th
February, when I returned to Fort Garry, I find one entry,
' Heard Capitulation of Paris.' From that day interest seemed
gone. Now it woke again.

The gentleman who had been my recent companion from
Fort Garry to Ottawa was at the Foreign OflBce. I went at
once there and told him what I wanted — a, passport for Paris
as soon as possible. ' You know Voltaire's saying,' he an-
swered, ' " Tigers and Monkeys " ? You wiU fuid the " tiger "
fit on now. I would not go if I were you.' I pressed my
request, got the passport, and that evening took the mail-train
from Charing Cross to Dover.

Dayhght comes early in the end of May. The opening of
the carriage door at Abbeville roused me from sleep ; a soldier
with a pickelhmibe on his head was in the carriage ; a Prussian
guard was on the station platform ; passports were scrutinised,
and passengers compared with them, and then we went on
again. It was j^et quite early when we reached St. Denis,
the extreme point to which the train ran. More Prussian
guards and soldiers everywhere. No use in asking ; there
we must remain. The ifitat-Major would not be open until
eight o'clock. Another man who had come from London for-

PARIS SEEN IN FLAMES 125

gathered with me at the station, and we sought breakfast
together. Then came the ]Stat-Major. My companion spoke
French with facility ; he was of the Law, and the ways of the
Army were utterly unknown to him. Between us we made
an excellent unit for dealing with a state of siege.

We were ushered in before a big bearded man, a Bavarian
staff officer of high rank. My companion spoke ; I prompted.
The commandant was very civil and very firm. Into Paris
we could not go, but we were free to ascend to the top of
the abbej'^ tower of St. Denis, and see Paris from that lofty
standpoint. We got passes for the abbey, and went to it.
From the place in front we could hear the boom of heavy guns
in the direction of Paris, but the church hid the view to the
south. We were soon at the top of the tower. One scarcely
noticed eight or ten officers who were already on the leads,
so wonderful was the panorama that burst upon us. All Paris
lay there, from Mont Valerien on the west to Vincennes on the
east, and all Paris apparently burning. A great pall of black
smoke hung high over the centre of the city, fed and supported
by eight tall pillars of flame and smoke, which rose straight
through the calm sunlit atmosphere of a May morning. From
the rounded summit of Montmartre on our right front a battery
of heavy guns was firing steadily across the middle distance
in the direction of the Buttes de Chaumont, Belleville, and
Pere la Chaise on our left as we looked due south. From
another point on that left front, apparently the Pare des
Buttes de Chaumont, a battery of the Communist army was
replying to the guns on Montmartre. The shells were making
great arcs, the trail of their flight made visible by the smoke
of the fuses.

Under the curves of this cannonade the domes and towers
of the northern half of Paris were visible, and some even to
the south of the river. The fires seemed to be in the centre
of the city, in the region of St. Eustache, the Tuileries and
Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.

From the Prussian officers on the tower we could get but little
information. The Versaillais troops had entered Paris on its
western side three or four days earlier ; there had been heavy
firing all that time, and the progress from west to east had been
slow but steady. They were now at Montmartre on one side,

126 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

and beyond the Pantheon on the other. The * Reds ' had
retired to the north-east extremities of the city, and they
appeared to be making a last stand from La Villette to Pere la
Chaise. Fires had been raging for three days and nights ;
many great monuments had been destroyed.

What a strange sight this was ! Assuredly St. Denis in all
its history from the days of Dagobert had never seen its equal.
German officers watching the bombardment of Paris by France,
smoking, spitting, and laughing as they watched !

One had now time to look to other points of the great circle
that lay around this lofty tower. There underneath to the north
was the battered fort of La Briche, which had suffered so much
from the Prussian batteries beyond ; two or three miles to
the east was the village of Le Bourget, the scene of terrible
fighting a couple of months earlier. The old abbey where
we stood had many scars and wounds to show. Shells fired
high over La Briche from two Prussian siege batteries had met
here before they went to earth ; the roof was pierced in several
places ; the tower on which we stood had been hit ; and a
shell had taken the head from the big stone statue of St. Denis
on the centre of the high roof.

We descended the long flights of steps to the great square
beneath the pavement of which lie in a common grave all the
dust of old royal France. Were the Germans on the tower
above, and the scene upon which they stolidly looked, the
punishments for that outrage of seventy-eight years earlier ? It
seemed to us that we had been looking at the death of France.

There was nothing more to be done in St. Denis. Could we
get by any means to Versailles ? Yes, an omnibus ran there
daily, but one must have a pass to go by it. We went again
to the fitat-Major, got the pass after another inspection of
passports, mounted the roof of the omnibus, and waited for
the start. It was not yet midday. All that long afternoon
we trundled along a roundabout way to Versailles, keeping
between two great loops of the Seine, and finally crossing that
river on a ferry-boat near Bougival. At this place we passed
from the German to the French lines. All the bridges had been
broken ; the fields looked dishevelled and the houses tattered,
for the big guns on Valerien had often reached them during the
winter just over.

ATTEMPT TO ENTER PARIS 127

It was interesting to note, along the twelve or fifteen miles
of our journey, the facility which this river of many windings
had given the Germans for investing Paris on her western side.
Break the bridges, watch well, and sit tight on the farther
bank of the river — ^nothing more was necessary there, from St.
Denis on the north to Bougival on the south.

We reached Versailles at dusk. My companion knew a
compatriot, the correspondent of a leading London journal.
We made out his inn and found him playing at billiards. ' You
have not the smallest chance,' he said, ' of getting into Paris :
awful work is going on there. The strictest watch is kept to
prevent strangers entering at the Point du Jour, the only gate
now open ; a special pass signed by the general is necessary.
Half Paris is burning, and news has just come that the Arch-
bishop and some forty priests have been shot by the Com-
munists.' He directed us to where we could find sofas for
the night, and with that we had to be satisfied. Nevertheless,
I determined to have a try for Paris next morning.

The Versailles omnibus was like an ant whose road is cut ;
the ant runs as far as the cut and back again. The bus was
doing this at Versailles, running to the Point du Jour, and
then coming back again. I got on the top of this conveyance
next morning. My quondam companion did not come. We
reached the Versailles end of the Point du Jour in the forenoon ;
the bus stopped ; I took up my knapsack and began to cross
the bridge. There was a guard at the farther end. The
sentinels stopped me. An officer appeared ; I presented my
passport. He read it, turned it upside down, shook his head,
and went back to his room. I put my knapsack down, and
sat upon it with my back to the battlement. I thought that
by this show of resigned acceptation to military authority I
might thaw the military mind, but it had no effect. Presently
a portly person came from the other, or Paris, side of the
bridge. His passes were examined ; the omnibus was pre-
paring to start back for Versailles, and he was going there.
I took up my bag and ascended the vehicle with reluctance.
Presently I addressed the portly man in the worst French.
He replied in the best English. We forgathered. We found
a link in a mutual knowledge of a distinguished Frenchman
of that time who had resided m Ireland for many years —

128 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Monsieur le Comte de Jarnac. M. D'Arcy (for that was my
companion's name) was an Orleanist whose normal residence
was in London. He possessed many sources of information,
and seemed to be able to go where he pleased. He had now
been in Paris for some days, and he was going to Versailles
for one night. One confidence led to another. He thought
he would be able to obtain a pass for me to enter Paris the
followmg day ; meanwhile there was no place in Versailles
where he could get a lodging for the night. I thought my
landlady of the previous evening could manage this for him.
We dined together in a cafe at Versailles, and then we walked
out to see the great avenue leading to Paris. The evening was
as glorious as May in its last week could make it. The three
great avenues which lead from the open space in front of the
palace were thronged with people. All kinds of rumours were
afloat. The ' Reds ' still held Villette and the Buttes de
Chaumont, but the cordon of the Versailles army was being
dra^vn closer around them ; great numbers of Communist
prisoners and many cannon and mitrailleuses had been taken ;
the loss of life was enormous ; the destruction of property
was stiU greater.

Presentlj'' we could see movement and commotion going on
far down the broad avenue towards Paris. Troops were
advancing up the roadway between the elm-trees ; a wave of
shouting and gesticulation accompanied them. The head of
the column was soon abreast of where we stood — cavalry
horses and men lean and hungry-] ooking ; faces grimed and
greasy ; luiiforms dust-covered and worn. Behind these
came a great straggling band of Communist prisoners, men,
women, and children, ragged, fierce, powder-marked, streaming
with perspiration ; such people as I had never seen before,
and have never seen since ; faces at the last gasp of exhaustion ;
faces that looked scornfully at the howling mob of bourgeois,
that shouting, racing crowd which ran under the elms on either
side and ran out of the cafes, throwing vile epithets over the
heads of the soldiers. At the end of this dismal column came
the carts with the wounded. In one of these there sat, bolt
upright, a woman in the prime of life ; her black hair hung
loose upon her shoulders, her olive face had a gash across one
cheek from which the blood was still flowing, her hands were

AT VERSAILLES 129

tied behind her back ; two or three wounded men lay at her
feet helplessly stricken, but had there been a thousand dead
or dying around her it would not have mattered. It was her
face that held the eye. I have never forgotten the face and
figure of that proud, defiant, handsome woman. The cart
passed with the rest, but I followed it with my eyes while it
was in sight, and ere it passed into distance I saw the figure
against the background of the great chateau as the terrible
cortege filed away into the open space before the palace.
There it all was, grouped, set, framed, and told as never pen
could write it, nor picture paint it. Two hundred years of
French history were there : the great King, the shameless
Court, the wreck of France. And so, until after sunset, the
stream flowed on : the dirtj^ ill-horsed dragoons, the cowardly
crowd along the side-walks, the struggling, shambling masses
marching in the roadway. Every phase of human age and
misery was there : white-haired men of seventy, desperado
boys of sixteen, old battered women, young girls clinging on
the arms of wild-looking j'ouths — ^all tired, hungry, blood-
stained— this time the defeated ones in the everlasting strife
between rich and poor, marching into the twilight. In a pocket-
book of that time I find these scenes outlined in a few short
sentences which end with the words : ' What hope ? What
hope ? ' Then overleaf I read this : ' Everywhere around
this scene was the beauty of the summer, the scent of leaf and
flower ; the horse chestnuts and elms were rippling with the
music of May, the air was filled with the song and chirp of
birds.'

That was the eternal answer to my question. If I did not
hear it then, I know it now.

CHAPTER IX

Paris in her agony. Writing The Cheat Lone Land. On half-pay. Bound
for the Saskatchewan. The lonely journey. Home. Ashanti. With Sir
Garnet Wolseley again.

My new-found friend, M. D'Arcy, was as good as his word.
Next day I attended with him at the ^fitat-Major in the palace
and passed the scrutmy. We set out again on the onmibus for
the Point du Jour. One incident occurred on the road, besides
the passage of captured guns and prisoners, now familiar to
me since the preceding evening. It was the coming of a strong
body of cavalry, escorting a carriage in which sat a short man
with round, owl-eyed spectacles and a general officer in undress
uniform. We drew up to let this cavalcade go by, and I had
a good look at the two men in the carriage. They were Mon-
sieur Thiers and Marshal MacMahon — the chief of the newly
formed Republic and the commander-in-chief of the French
armj^ The fighting phase of the war of France against the
Commune was clearly over.

When we passed the barrier at the enceinte of Paris, a long
road lay before us to our destination in the Rue Vivienne. I
carried my knapsack. My companion was already domiciled
in the Hotel des ^fitrangers, for which we were bound. There
were no horses or carriages and very few pedestrians to be
seen ; patrols, mounted and on foot, were about. We struck
the Seine somewhere near Auteuil, and followed the right bank
of the stream for a long distance. Looking up the river
towards the north of Paris one still saw a bank of smoke, but
it was nothing Hke what it had been two days before from St.
Denis. It was dusk when we reached the Place de la Concorde ;
a long May twUight had light still left to show at least some of
the devastation that had here been wrought by fire and shell.
The great offices of State that flanked the Place on its north
side were all in ruins, roofless, and black with smoke ; masses

130

ASPECT OF PARIS IN MAY '71 131

of charred and burnt papers covered the paved floor of the
Place, and were blowing in the breeze ; a strong smell of burnt
stuff filled the air ; the palace of the Corps L6gislatif and the
buildings on the Quai d'Orsay were black and roofless. Looking
to the left up the Rue Castighone one saw no column above
the Place Vendome. But the strangest sight was the Tuileries.
Nothing remained of that great historic pile but the bare, gaunt
walls, through the glassless windows of which the glow of
floors and rafters still burning below cast a deep red glare ;
the effect in the twihght was like that of lighted candles
set within a colossal skull. I do not remember having seen a
single human being in that huge scene of destruction around
the Place de la Concorde.

At every entrance along the Rue de Rivoli great barricades
of stone and timber were standing. The silence of death was
here. Not a single lamp was lighted. Twilight seemed to be
closing over an enormous graveyard in which even the tombs
were ruined. Just seventeen months earUer I had looked at
this scene ghttering in myriad jets of gas. A turn of the thumb
and forefinger can put out a good deal of gas.

We turned into the gardens of the Palais Royal, and here
at last there was life. It was now quite dark, but two bat-
taHons of regular soldiers were encamped in the gardens, and
their supper fires were stOl smouldering.

There was one old woman in the Hotel des iStrangers, who
let us in after some debate, and got us some cold salt beef for
supper.

I could not enter into the details of the next week, although
it was a very wonderful week. The days were gloriously fine ;
I was quick of foot and could go for manj^ hours together
without tiring. I explored the great city in every direction, and
I saw many scenes that are not likely to be seen again in our
time. Morning after morning I started out early, ate and
drank somewhere, and got back at nightfall to the Rue
Vivienne. Troops were pourmg into Paris, and the hunt for
Communists was in full swing ; the barricades were disappear-
ing ; horses began to show in the thoroughfares again. One
could follow the routes of the Versailles troops along both sides
of the river up to Belleville, and tell by the shell marks
and bullet holes the places where the fiercest resistance had

132 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

been made. A great stand had taken place in front of the
Hotel de Ville and along the Une of the Boulevard Sebastopol.
Great numbers of dead had been hastily buried in the square
near the tower of St. Jacques, and the warm May sun was making
the air smell badly. Another stand had been made at the
Place de la Bastille. Ammunition seemed literally to have been
poured along the streets in the vicinity of this spot : a tin hat
suspended over the door of a hatter's shop had six bullets in it.
At the corner of the Rue Castex and the Rue St. Antoine every
wall, door, and window was pitted. The column of July had
a dozen cannon-shots through its base.

The Hotel de Ville was a scene of the greatest destruction
I had ever beheld ; everything in it or near it was smashed
to atoms — the great clock, the wonderful staircase, the statues,
the bronze railings, the equestrian figures of Liberte, Egalite,
and Fraternite — all was broken, charred, and brayed into
bits.

I went on to Pere Lachaise. Here the last stand had been
made among the tombs, and it was here that the heavy shell
fire I had watched from the tower of St. Denis had wrought
the greatest havoc. Of the great and noble soldiers whose
graves or monuments are in Pere Lachaise — Ney, MacDonald,
Suchet, Massena, Kellermann, Foy, Lavalette, and Labedoyere
— nothing was stirred or injured ; but some at least of the
stock-jobber and capitalist fraternity — that dynasty which
seems to have succeeded to the thrones vacated by the old
despots — had not been so fortunate. The gorgeously vulgar
mausoleum of Casimir Perrier had been shot into with bullets,
and the tomb of the Due de Momy had apparently served as an
eating- table for the ' Red ' soldiers, for there were broken
loaves of bread and ends of wine bottles on it.

In the Place de la Concorde the Egyptian obelisk had escaped
a rain of shells fired from a Versailles battery at the Arc de
Triomphe, but the statue of Lille was shattered to pieces, its
head and bust lying on the ground. The winged horses at the
main entrance to the Tuileries Gardens were wingless, the'
marble balustrades were knocked about, and the trees and
asphalt paths and floorings rent and torn with shells.

To me the pity of it all centred in the column of Austerlitz,
and its statue lying prone in the dust and litter of the Place

THE PRISON OF LA ROQUETTE 133

Vendome. The Prussian shot from the siege batteries of
Chatillon and Meudon had spared the dome of the Invahdes,
but Frenchmen had been found base enough to pull down in
cold blood the bronze pillar made from the cannon of Austerlitz,
with the statue of the Great Conqueror on its summit. That
sight hardened my heart to the scenes I was now to witness.
These were the hunting out of those wretched people, all
through the north and north-east of Paris. By this time the
prisoners taken by the Prussians in the war had all returned
to France, and it was easy for the new Government to obtain
soldiers ; but they were soldiers upon whose faces it was not
difficult to read the story of the defeat and demoralisation of
that war. They had been prisoners, they had been marched
away from disastrous fields of defeat and surrender, huddled
together in tens of thousands, just as they were now huddling
their own brothers and cousins into the camps at Satory and
Versailles.

One saw soldiers everywhere — idle, undisciplined, dirty.
Few among them seemed to care for themselves, or for any one
else. There was no pride about them, no apparent sense or
knowledge of the things they were looking at on every side.
The moral rivets of their individual bodies and souls seemed
to be as loose as were the social and pohtical screws of the
body politic in the collective fabric of the State. The marines
and sailors were of quite a dififerent type : one saw in them
a look and demeanour alert and serious : they seemed to know
what had happened.

Paris was now locked up more securely than ever. People
returning to their homes from the country were allowed to
enter ; people wanting to leave Paris for the country could
not go out. The prisons were all full, and over and over again
one saw repeated in smaller groups the scenes I had witnessed
at Versailles on that second evening there.

I went one day to the prison of La Roquette. It was there
that the Archbishop of Paris and some forty priests had been
shot in cold blood by the Communists. M. D'Arcy was with
me on this occasion, and we were passed in at once. We were
shown into a small courtyard of the prison by a young naval
lieutenant, who coolly explained to us the processes of the trial
and execution of Communists. ' We strip their right shoulders,'

134 SIR WILLIMI BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

he said. * If the skin of the neck and shoulder shows the dark
mark produced by the kick of the chassepot rifle the court pro-
nounces the single word " classe " ; if there is no mark of
discoloration on the shoulder tlie president says " passe,'" and
the man is released. Those to whom " classe " is said are shot.
One hundred and fifty were shot at daybreak this morning in
this courtyard.' There was ghastly proof around that the man
spoke truly. The courtyard wae paved with round stones,
and one had to step from stone to stone to avoid the blood
that fiUed the interstices between them. A horrible smell,
as of a shambles, filled the yard. Along the waU where the
condemned men had stood the high-growing dock and marsh-
mallow weeds had their heads aU cut off, and the waU was
pitted with innumerable holes by buUets. It was a battalion
of Breton sailors who were emploj^ed on this duty.

In a room of the prison the officer showed us the hand and
ring of the murdered archbishop. Probably these ghastly
reUcs were kept there in order to nerve the Breton sailors to
their terrible work.

In another courtyard stood a great pile of rifles, knapsacks,
and accoutrements, all made for fighting the Prussians. This
was the end.

I had seen enough of Paris in her agony, and would have
been glad to shut my eyes upon her sufferings ; but to leave
the city was now much more difficult than to enter it had been
a week ago. The thought that had been growing in my mind
above every other thought in those days and amid those scenes
was the hopelessness of all this social world of our so-called
civilisation. Was this all that we had been able to do for the
people, for the men who had nothing, for those poor whom we
were always to have with us ? Nations fought themselves into
victory on one side and the other, dynasties rose and dis-
appeared, rehgions ebbed and flowed ; but in this war there was
no cessation, no equilibrium, no end. The have's and the have-
not's were always face to face, ready to shoot down or to rush
in. Often before my mind at this time came that scene
in the Elysee on the morning of the 22nd June 1815, four
days after Waterloo, when Napoleon, hearing the shouts of the
populace of the faubourgs calling upon him to dissolve the
Chamber of Deputies and proclaim himself Dictator, exclaimed

FROM PARIS TO IRELAND 135

bitterly, ' Poor people ! they alone stand by me in the hour
of my reverses, yet I have not loaded them with riches or
honours, I leave them poor, as I found them/ How many
since that day have had their chance of doing something for
these submerged millions, and have done nothing ! And yet
now, when I look back upon it aU, over the almost forty
years gone since I saw the faU of the Commune, it seems that
only on one road, humanly speaking, lies the hope of redemp-
tion for them. It is outlined in another utterance of the
Great Conqueror, recorded as spoken on that same day of his
abdication,

* You come from the village of Gonesse ? ' said Napoleon
to the boy page who had brought him a cup of coffee, ' No,
sire, from Pierrefitte,' ' Where your parents have a cottage
and some acres of land ? ' ' Yes, sire.' ' That is the only
true happiness,' Yes, and it is the only true wealth, of men
and of nations. Man under modern dispensations has been
graciously permitted by his masters to go back to the land
only after he is dead : I think if they would permit him to do
so during his Ufe, and allow him that ' cottage and some acres
of land,' things would not be so bad in our world. Did not a
son of Cain build the first city ?

I got permission to leave Paris, Trains ran from the Gare
du Nord again. In the carriage with me were two English
surgeons who had been doing ambulance work in those final days
of the Commune, One, afterwards a weU-known man, related
some incidents which had come under his notice in these last
fights. An old woman was found crouching under an upturned
cart behind a barricade ; the troops advanced thinking the
barricade had been abandoned by everybody ; the old woman
shot with a revolver the first soldier who approached her, ' I
have had three sons kiUed in this fighting,' she said, ' and I
swore that I would kiU one enemy. You may shoot me now.'
They did so,

I went to Ireland, and began at once to write a book on those
great lone spaces of the earth which I had quitted only a few
weeks earher. It seemed so strange that there should be
these vast, vacant lands, while here the city-pent millions were
murdering each other with such ferocity, and I longed, too, to
get back to the wilds again. In the army there seemed to be

136 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

no chance for me. When my leave of absence expired, I was
ordered to join the depot of my regiment, then at Chatham.
I went there in the end of 1871. The men in authority were
exceedingly kind, work was hght, and I was able to devote
several hours every day to my manuscript. It grew rapidly.
In that Uttle dingy red-brick subaltern's quarter on the old
terrace in the ' Phonghee ' barracks at Chatham I Uved again
in the wilds. What an infinite blessing is the mystery of
memory ! No possession or instinct belonging to man can
touch that single gift — to look back, to remember, to be young
when you are old, to see the dead, to paint a picture upon a
prison wall, to have ways to escape, to be free — aU this out of
Memory. Surely this was ' the breath of life ' breathed into
the brain of man when God gave him ' a living soul.' And yet
there are people who say they cannot see the soul !

While I was thus far away in memory in the lone spaces an
unexpected piece of good fortune happened. Horatio Nelson
Case had ' struck oil.' A syndicate had been formed in Canada
for the development of Petrolia, and our plot of forest-land
was wanted by it. Case was adamantine. He would only
take six thousand pounds for our lot. He got it. I tele-
graphed to my officer-partner in Bermuda to proceed at once
on leave to Canada to be present at the division of profits.
He could not, or would not go. The profit available appeared
to be a simple sum — five thousand two hundred pounds to be
halved, and halved again. But in business of this kind there
is nothing simple ; it is always compound. I had calculated
my share of one thousand three hundred pounds, but somehow
or other it worked out a good deal less. It always does. Any-
how the conclusion of the ' bear ' transaction, begun in the
Brooke Swamp three years earlier, left me with a clear thou-
sand pounds. Had it come a year or two earlier I would
undoubtedly have purchased a company in the 69th Regiment,
and might have eventually blossomed into a retired major.
So, my dear yoimg friend, if you meet with a check in life or
a disappointment in your profession, as in three cases out of
four you are bound to do, remember an old soldier's advice,
' Go on again.' Repack your knapsack if necessary, but
whatever articles you throw out of it, don't unload that imagin-
ary baton of field-marshal. It costs nothing to carry, it has

TO THE WILDS AGAIN 137

no value to anybody except yourself ; but neither has the
apple of your eye.

In the middle of April 1872 I was gazetted to an unattached
(half-pay) company in the army. I had finished my book,
and sent the MS. to a publisher, and was immensely pleased
when he was good enough to accept it. I was now free to go
where I chose, and I chose the wilds again. I left my postal
address at the War Office, ' Carlton House, Saskatchewan.'
I have an idea that the name ' Carlton ' in the address induced
the clerk in the War Office who had to deal with the postal
addresses of officers to refrain from raising any objection to the
remainder of the domiciliary location ; or it may have been
that the head of his department, with a wider geographical
knowledge, had said to his subordinate when the pap^ was
presented to him, ' Not far off enough.' In any case, no
objection was raised. Carlton House was at that time nine
hundred miles from the nearest railway station, but it was
the point of distribution for the winter packet dog-post,
which left Fort Garry just before Christmas ; and wherever I
might be in the territories of the Hudson Ba}" Company,
letters would find me some time. Then I started for New
York.

I set out with no fixed plan of travel. I wanted to go
beyond where I had been before, and the ' beyond ' that lay
to the north of the Saskatchewan Vallej^ was a very big place.
You could get a round two thousand miles in it in almost any
direction north of an east and west line running through Fort
Carlton.

I had a general idea of getting into the basin of the Mackenzie
River, descending that great stream nearly to its mouth, then
going into the valley of the Yukon, ' and so on and so on,'
as my Levantine interpreter used to say on the Nile, twelve
years later, when he had exhausted the one hundred and
twenty-five English one-syllable words which were his entire
linguistic stock-in-trade, and the possession of which enabled
him to draw the pay and allowances of a major in the British
army.

In the few months I had spent in Chatham I was in the
habit of visiting the library of the Royal Geographical Society.
It was the time when Livingstone had not been heard of for

138 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

years ; an expedition was being organised by the Society to
look for him. I ofiFered my services, was not accepted, and,
true to the old habit of ' going on again,' I set out shortly
after in the opposite direction to Lake Bangweolo (where the
great missionary-explorer had been last heard of), with the
result that, just one year later, I found myself at Lake Atha-
basca, twelve hundred miles north-west of Fort Garry, with
the prospect of another twelve hundred miles up the valley of
the Peace River to the Pacific coast at Vancouver. The
narrative of that journey has been written long ago.^

Before striking north from Fort Carlton I had spent three
months in a hut at the ' forks ' of the Saskatchewan, in com-
pany with a brother officer of my regiment, and trusted friend.
Captain Mansfield. Mansfield had left the 69th Regiment,
tired of serving without seeing service. We had a plan that,
after tasting again the wild life of the prairies, we would settle
in some part of the Saskatchewan Valley, and begin ranching
life there with a herd of cattle driven from the States. Had
we carried this intention into efiEect, our ranch would have
been the first of its kind in the Canadian North- West. At
that time I think I may say with truth that I stood almost
alone in my belief that this vast region had a great future
before it. Among all the officers of the Hudson Bay Com-
pany I did not know one who believed in the potentialities
of the land in which they had spent their lives. Furs it had,
and minerals it might have, but for the grain or food products
of the earth, they did not think anything of it. Even at
Winnipeg at this time so slight were the expectations that
the place would become the site of a large city that I was
offered, in the month of August 1872, sixteen hundred acres
of land, where the town stands to-day, for sixteen hundred
pounds. This offer was pressed upon me by an old army
pensioner. Mulligan by name, who had gradually bought up
for a mere trifle the grants of land given to private soldiers
in the 6th Regiment some twenty years earlier. Dissatisfied
with the trend of public opinion after the Riel Rebellion of 1870,
he was desirous of leaving the place for ever. For myself, I
am not sorry that I stuck to the army ship. The best and the
worst that can be said of it is that it is a poor profession : I

1 The Wild North Land. (E. B.)

THE ARMY :MAN— A DIGRESSION 139

hope it wiU long remain so. 'I look around on every side/
wrote Carlyle, ' and I see one honest man in the community.
He is the drill sergeant/ WeU, I will not go so far as that ;
but this I can say, that if the soldier be honest it is because he
is poor, and if he is poor it is because he is honest. He is unfit
for business, they teU me, and I agree with those who say so.
You will usually find that when the soldier has tried his hajid
at business he has made a fool of himself, and has lost his httle
money. He believes in others, that is the mistake he makes
in business ; he thinks that a man's word spoken should have
as much weight as when it is written across a penny postage
stamp, and he finds out, generally too late, that it hasn't.
Even when the soldier tries to be a rogue, he usually makes
a mess of it. He is like a trooper in the 11th Hussars at
Canterbury, who once complained to his general that whenever
there was a row in the town he was invariably caught by the
police, because of the cherry-coloured breeches he was com-
pelled to wear : * them darker-coloured overall chaps get off,'
but he, the red-breeched one, was sure to be nailed in the end,
no matter how many comers he got round in the run home to
barracks. In no part of the Empire does the soldier make such
a fool of himself as inside of Temple Bar, East of that historic
boundary he is a child ; there was no necessity for the City
Fathers to stipulate that soldiers should unfix bayonets when-
ever they came within the city precincts : they disarm them-
selves when they go there. There were only two soldiers in
history who did well in the city of London : one was Oliver
Cromwell, the other was George Monk. They both plundered
it.

I think I may add to this digression by putting down a httle
incident which happened in the Crimean War, but of which I
only became aware two years ago. On the night preceding
the attack on the Redan on the 18th June 1855, a party of
officers of the Fourth Division, who were detailed for the assault,
were playing cards in a tent on the heights before Sebastopol.
The ' fall in ' was to go at 2 a.m., and there was no use in
lying down that night. Before the card-party broke up
accounts were settled. A cousin of mine — a captain in the
57th Regiment — received from a captain in the 17th Foot,
named Croker, an I O U for a considerable sum of money,

140 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

which he, Croker, had lost to my relative. A few hours later
Croker was killed at the Redan. There had only been a half-
hour s interval between the ' fall out ' for the game of cards
and the ' faU in ' for the great game of war, so of course my
cousin tore up the I 0 U, and thought no more about the trans-
action. A couple of months later he received a letter from
the army agents, Cox & Co., in London, informing him that
they had received on the day of his death an advice from the

late Captain Croker directing the sum of £ to be placed

to the account of Captain Butler in their hands. So much has
been said and written in recent years against the old army
and the old regimental system that I give this little incident
as a trifling tribute to both.

During the autumn and winter of 1872, and the first half
of 1873, I had movement, sport, travel, and adventure suffi-
cient to satisfy the longings of anybody. I was at that time
boiling with the spirit of movement, and distance alone sufficed
to lend enchantment to my prospect of travel. The scene
could not be too remote, nor the theatre too lonely. The
things I did not want to see or know of were trains and steam-
boats ; the canoe or the prairie pony in summer, the snow-
shoe and dog-sled in winter, one's own feet and legs at all times
— these were good enough for passing over the surface of God's
wonderful world. I was a fair shot, and even where the
Hudson Bay Companj^'s posts were some hundred miles apart,
and Indian camps were few and far between, the gun and the
baited fish-hook could still provide dinner and supper; and
for bed, old Mother Earth gave it, and the pine brush made
mattress and pillow. I have often thought that the reply of
the once potent Indian chief. Black Hawk, to the American
commissioner who offered him a chair to sit on at a conference
on the Upper Mississippi eighty years ago, held in it the whole
secret and soul of the wilderness. ' Thank you,' said the
Indian chief, as he seated himself on the ground, ' the Earth is
my mother, and on her bosom I can rest myself.' You can
never know that mother until you go and live with her in the
wilderness ; it is only there that she takes you on her lap
and whispers to you her secret things. It is only when you
join the ranks of the wild things that they will accept you as
one of themselves and will cease to look at you as a stranger.

BACK TO CIVILISED TRAVEL 141

Fancy a place where there are no drains, no coal smoke, no
factory chimneys ; where you cannot speak ill of your neigh-
bour, nor envy him, nor tell him the simplest form of He, nor
be bored by him — that last, the greatest of all the earthly
beatitudes ! And the strange part of it is that if you have
once tasted well of the wild fruit, you have got an antidote for
ever against being bored. INIy friends sometimes say to me,
* How can you listen so patiently to that terrible old bore,
General Pounce ? ' or, 'I saw you to-day in the morning-
room with that stupid old Major de Trop, and you seemed to
be hanging on every word he said/ At which I smile, but
say nothing, for it would destroy my happiness if the secret
were known. As he ripples along, I launch my canoe on the
stream of his story, merely on the sound of it, and I sail away
into the lone spaces. It is the Athabasca, the river of the
meadows, the Souris River, the river that echoes, that I am
on again. He, poor fellow, hasn't the sUghtest suspicion of
what I am doing. He never asks me a question. He wants
none of my thoughts, and he gets none. He only wants some-
thing to speak at, and I give him that generously. Then,
when he is quite tired, he goes away, and I go to the writing-
table and scribble down some doggerel such as this : —

' If a bore had seen what one swallow saw
Or could read from a rook his Mayday caw
Or could riddle aright one wild-bee's hum,
No bore he would be — but he might be dumb.'

But then we would have changed places, and I might have been
the bore.

At last, in the middle of 1873, I got out through that great
tangle of mountains, lake, and rushing river which forms the
northern portion of British Columbia, and with one dog, the
untiring ' Cerf volant,' for companion, reached the ways of
civilised travel and the Pacific Ocean. In the very centre of
this tangle of mountains and rapids I had struck a small
camp of gold-miners at a place called Germanson, on the
Ominica River, a large tributary stream which joins the Peace
River west of the Rocky Mountains. To get to this spot we
had been working for twenty days in a ' dug-out ' canoe
against the flooded stream of the Ominica, We were a party

142 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of four. The steersman was a little Frenchman from Belfort,
Jacques Pardonnet by name, a man of extraordinary know-
ledge and pluck, qualities to which was mainly due under
Providence our escape from many perUs of rock and rapid,
whirlpool and ice-floe, for we had launched our ' dug-out ' on
the Upper Peace River before the ice had been cleared from the
current.

As we drew near Germanson, Jacques began to speak at
the camp fire in the evening of an English captain who was at
the mining camp the previous year. He called him by a name
that had been familiar to me at Fermoy fourteen years earlier :
if he had known the officer's Christian name identification
would have been assured, for the first name had been Napoleon ;
but he knew only the captain's surname. On entering German-
son the first person I came upon was the very man.

It was the end of August when I got back to Canada proper,
the Canada of the St. Lawrence River. I was fairly puzzled
what next to do. The long traU through the north and west
by the Athabasca and Peace River to the Pacific had eaten a
big hole iuto the round thousand won out of the day in Brooke
Swamp three years earlier. To tell the truth, it is a very wide
step from the real wilderness to that state of semi-civilised
savagery which is the life of the frontier settler, those first
and second stages in the evolution of the ranch and the wheat-
field from the primaeval prairie and the pme forest. When the
wild man and the buffalo disappear from the stage, the next
comer, whether man or beast, doesn't show to advantage.
Even the old white hunter, the trapper, the ' Leather-Stocking '
of the immortal Fenimore Cooper, has to fold up his camping-
kit, shoulder his rifle, and move off into lonelier lands or deeper
forests. He cannot stand it. As it was in ' the old Colonial
days ' of America, so was it forty years ago. When I first went
to the Platte River in 1867 a few ' Leather-Stockings ' were
stni to be found at the forts of the United States troops ; and
foremost among that small, lessening band was the celebrated
Bridger, the grizzled veteran of the great days of Captain
Bonneville, Fitzpatrick, and Sublette. One day a newcomer
from the east, seeing this old veteran Bridger standing silent
at Laramie, thought to open conversation by asking if it was
not a long time since he had come out west. The old hunter

OFFER OF SERVICE FOR THE GOLD COAST 143

did not seem to have heard his questioner, and the remark was
repeated. Then Bridger took his pipe from his mouth, and
gravely answered as he pointed towards Pike's Peak in
the west : ' Young man, do you see that thar peak ? '
* Yes/ ' Well, when I came out to these prairies that thar
peak was a hole in the ground.' He then went on smoking
again.

One evening when I was in this undecided frame of mind
as to where I would go and what I would next do, I opened a
paper in an hotel at Ottawa, and read in the cablegram from
England the announcement that an expedition was being
prepared for the West Coast of Africa. Sir Garnet Wolseley
was to command. His stafif would consist of many officers
who had served under him on the Red River expedition. No
troops were to be sent until after the general and his officers
had reached the West Coast. It was expected that this cam-
paign would be over by March. Sir Garnet and his friends
were to sail from England on the 8th September. That was
all. It was now the 30th August. I read the message carefully
a second time, took in the situation, went to the telegraph-
office, and sent a message to Sir Garnet Wolseley in London
that I was coming. Then looking up the steamer sailings I
found that there was a steamer leaving New York on the 3rd
September. The telegrams of the next day brought further
particulars. The well-known unhealthiness of the West Coast
of Africa generally, and of the Gold Coast in particular, was
the reason assigned for the extraordinary fact that no troops
were being sent with the general and his staff to the new seat
of war. It was hoped that the native negro levies would suffice.
If, after the general had arrived at Cape Coast Castle, it was
found that the natives would not fight the soldiers of the King
of Ashanti, then white troops would be sent from England,
and an advance made upon Coomassie.

It is the most precious privilege of youth not to question
anything. ^\'liat did it matter if the Gold Coast had been the
White Man's Grave ever since Columbus had been there ?
One never dreamt of asking whether a climate was good or
bad. A missionary who would stop to inquire if his pre-
decessor had disagreed with the caimibal king who had eaten
him would be as ridiculous as the young soldier who troubled

144 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

his head as to the precise points of disagreement between his
constitution and the climate of the country to which he was
bound. It is the business of the young soldier to agree with
his climate even when it disagrees with him.

Even the quickest of steamships went slowly in those days
compared with the ocean fliers of to-day. The Russia
took ten days to get to Liverpool, and I missed the start
of Sir Garnet and his staff from the same port by eight
hours.

I remember little of the voyage save a small personal in-
cident in it which was a pleasant surprise to me. I had left
England seventeen months earlier, while my Mttle book of
travel was still in the printer's hands. Its subsequent fortunes
were therefore scarcely known to me, for I had been buried in
the wilds during the greater part of the interval. One evening,
when I was sitting in the smoking-room of the steamer, a man
observed to another passenger, ' I hear the author of The
Great Lone Land is on board the steamer." As I had the
manuscript of another book of northern travel in my bag,
nearly completed, the chance remark was doubly pleasant to
me. Perhaps I should find some balance in the Army bankers'
hands to my credit, and perhaps, too, the publishers of my
first literary venture would be favourably disposed to try a
second one.

When I reached London from America, I found a message
from Sir Garnet Wolseley directing me to follow him to the
Gold Coast, and I received official information from the War
Office that my passage would be provided in a West African
steamer, sailing on the 30th September. So on the last day
of September I left England again in the steamer Benin bound
for Cape Coast Castle. A terrible-smeUing craft was the old
Benin. Fever seemed to have established itself securely amid
her close, Ul-kept decks. A couple of voyages earlier, eleven
men had died out of her small crew, a steward and two cabin
servants being among them. On this voyage of ours the
captain and some half-dozen others were to go. Like every
other sea-captain I had ever sailed with, this commander of
the Benin, Captain Stone, was a splendid fellow. ' I hope to
be back again by Christmas,' he said, * and to spend the holidays
with my wife at home in Dublin.' He never came back. A

ARRIVAL AT CAPE COAST CASTLE 145

month later he was in a hammock-shroud mider the waters
somewhere m the steaming Bight of Benin.

' Remember, remember the Bight of Benin ;
Few come out, though many go in.'

So ran the old sailor's song of our grandfathers' days, when
Tom Cringle kept his log and Captain Marryat wrote his sea-
stories. They tell me things are better there to-day. Perhaps.

The Benin touched at many places on the coast — Sierra
Leone, Palmas, Liberia, Jack- Jack, and Monrovia. A little
while before, a strange thing had happened at the last-named
place. All these ships trading to West Africa carried in round
holes near the scuppers on the deck two rows of roundshot,
six or nine pounders ; these were not for hostile use, they were
kept for a funereal purpose — that of sinking the poor dead men
deep in the Bight of Benin, by being fastened to the foot of
the hammock-shroud. But one day when the vessel was
steaming into Monrovia, and the signal gun had been duly
loaded with powder for the blank shot which was to wake up
the government and postal officials of that place, a wag on
board quietly dropped one of these roundshots into the carron-
ade on the top of the powder. Presently, bang ! went the alarm
gun, and then a round black object was observed hurling itself
through the air in the direction of the wooden pier whereon
the sable officials were already drawn up in state to greet the
English steamer. The shot struck the pier, sending woodwork
flying in all directions ; the officials fled, the President of the
RepubUc of Liberia leading, the Postmaster-General, a very
old negro, bringing up the rear. I never heard how the matter
ended.

The Benin reached Cape Coast Castle early on the 22nd
October. A surf-boat came out with an officer for mails. He
ofifered to put me on shore. As we paddled in through the
heavy surf, which is ever rolling in three great lines of foam
against the shores of tropical Africa, I asked the officer his
name. It was the same as that of ' the captain,' formerly of
Fermoy, whom I had left at the Ominica gold-mine in British
Columbia four months earlier. ' Any relation in America ? '
' A brother somewhere in the wilds of whom I have not heard
for years, if he is stiU alive,' he answered. ' He was alive four

K

146 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

months ago,' I replied ; ' and what is more, he gave me a
message for his brother in the service, should I chance to fall
in with him.' I had come almost straight from that distant
spot. The first man I met at the end of the fifteen thousand
miles was the brother of the last man I had seen in Ominica.

CHAPTER X

West Coast of Africa. ' The Wolseley Gang.' Beating up the natives.
Recalcitrant kings. Fever. The forest. Invading Ashanti.

As steam bends the stoutest blackthorn wood, so the hot, moist
climate of the Gold Coast bends and makes limp the stoutest
human body.

This melting work begins even before the coast is reached.
No sooner has the ship turned eastward from the Atlantic into
the ' Bights ' than an immediate change becomes perceptible
in the atmosphere ; an oppressive, damp, steamy air is
breathed ; the body streams with perspiration of a clammy,
weakening kind ; the very sap of strength is bleeding at every
pore. There is no fury about the heat. Compared with the
range of the thermometer in the Soudan, or even in India, the
heat on the coast or in the forest behind it is nothing ; but
it is incessant, unvarying, and its quality of excessive dampness
is the killing factor in it. The sapping process goes on night
and day : a peculiar damp, leaden look is on the skin. As
poor Prince Henry of Battenberg wrote of the climate twenty
years later, ' the damp heat is indescribable, so also is the
effect it produces. Even if you sit quiet without moving,
perspiration streams off your body day and night. The air
reeks with malaria and poison. . . . What would not one give
for a few whiffs of pure air without these dreadful miasmas
that hang about one like ghosts ! ' But on the day of arrival
all this had yet to be learnt ; and I stepped ashore from the
surf-boat, and went up the wretched street that led from the
old Slave Castle to Government House with as light a step
as though I were still in the Black Caiion of the far-away
Ominica.

The general and his staff were assembling for breakfast.
It was pleasant to meet old friends of Red River days again
— Redvers Buller, Huyshe, McCalmont. Baker Russell was

U7

148 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

down with fever, and McNeill with wounds. New men
were there too : Brackenbury, Maurice, Lanyon. Evelyn
Wood was at Elmina. Hume was making a road towards
Coomassie. It was the habit in later years to call these men,
and a few others, ' The Wolseley Gang/ I see in the dictionary
that the word is derived from the Danish, and that it means, in
its primitive sense, ' to go,' but I don't think that was the
meanmg its users attached to it. I see, too, that its modem
signification is sometimes ' a number of persons associated for a
certain purpose, usually a bad one.' I look back now over
nigh forty years, and I don't think there was any bad purpose
individually or collectively in that httle group of men. I
accept with pleasure the Danish definition of the word, ' to go.'
We, for I was a humble member, certainly did go : some
dropped on the road early, and others fell out later ; a few
struggled on to the end. They rest in many places : one at
Prah-su, another under Majuba, another in the middle of the
Desert of Bajaida, another at Spion Kop, another under the
sea near St. Helena, another in the sands at Tel-el-Kebir,
another in the veldt at Magersfontein. Poor old ' Gang ' !
They kept going as long as they could go, and now they are
nearly aU gone. May they rest in peace !

It would have been difficult to match the military situa-
tion which was now existing in and around Cape Coast
Castle. A general and some thirty or forty officers of various
abihties had landed on the most pestilential shore in the
world for the avowed object of driving back a horde of forty
thousand splendidlj^ disciplined African savages, who had
invaded British territory. AU the hopes founded upon the
idea that the native races who lived under our protection in
the forest lying between the sea and the River Prah — Fantis,
Assims, Abras, and others — would rally under English leader-
ship to do battle against their hereditary enemies, the Ashantis,
had proved entirely fallacious. Palaver had followed palaver,
the chiefs and kinglets were profuse in promise, feeble in
performance, and cowardly in action. Nothing could induce
them to tackle the Ashanti enemy. If men wanted to study
the ejffect, good and evil, upon man brought up with discipline
and without it, here on this coast was to be found the best field
for such an inquiry. On one side of the Prah River lived a

THE SLAVE TRADE 149

people possessing to an extraordinary degree a high military
spirit, on the other a people as cowardly as could be found
anywhere on earth. Both were of the same race : in ancestry,
colour, size, language, and feature they were identical. A
hundred years earUer they had been one kingdom : what had
happened to make this extraordinary change in character
and habit ?

I think it would be correct to say that beyond the Prah the
old African idea of a cruel but effective system of despotic
authority had been maintained ; and that to the south of that
little river of forty yards span the blessings of trade and com-
merce had steadily sapped the moral strength and physical
courage of the ' protected ' tribes.

An American writer has said that if you put a chain round
the neck of a slave, the other end of the chain will fasten
itself round your own neck. Perhaps that was what had
happened here. This coast had been for two hundred and
more years the greatest slave preserve in the world. All
these castles dotted along the surf-beaten shore at ten or
twelve mile intervals were the prisons where, in the days of the
slave-trade, milhons of wretched negroes had been immured,
waiting the arrival of slave-ships from Bristol or Liverpool to
load the human cargo for West Indian or American ports. It
would not be too much to say that from each of these prison-
castles to some West Indian port, a cable of slave skeletons
must be lying at the bottom of the ocean. In that terrible
trade the protected tribes of the coast were the prime brokers.
They bought from the black interior kingdoms of Dahomey
and Ashanti, and they sold to the white merchant traders of
Europe ; slaves, rum, and gunpowder were the cliief items in
the bills of lading. The gunpowder went to the interior, the
rum was drunk on the coast, the slaves, or those who survived
among them, went to America. If two in ten lived through
the horrors of the middle passage the trade paid. John
Wesley knew what he was talking about when he said of that
heUish traffic that it was ' the sum of all human villanies ' ;
and yet there never was one man in the world to whom it was
possible to know even half of the villanies concentrated in
that single phrase — the slave-trade.

After a week on the coast, one began to know the way of

160 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

things fairly well. This coast had ways of its own that no
other coast known to me possessed. Our forty special-service
oflScers and their motley groups of natives were distributed
between the seaports of Elmina and Cape Coast Castle, and
in certain positions a few miles inland, chiefly along the forest
track leading towards the River Prah. The great forest did
not come right down to the seashore ; there was an interval
of bush some six or eight miles deep before the real trees began.
In this deep real forest lay the Ashanti army spread out
along a circle of crooms or villages distant from the sea about
twelve miles. Little was known about the numbers of this
army : it had originally been forty or fifty thousand men,
but many forms of disease were said to have thinned its ranks
since it had crossed the Prah six months earUer. StOl less was
known as to the intentions of its commander, Amonquatier by
name. The spies sent out by us brought back no trustworthy
information ; they were as cautious and as cowardly as were
their chiefs and kinglets. At last some tangible news reached
us from this mysterious Ashanti camp at Mampon. It was
brought by a fugitive slave woman direct from the Ashanti
headquarters ; and the story told by the runaway had so many
little bits of domestic detaU and family intrigue woven into
it that the more important facts of Ashanti movement and
intentions seemed to derive confirmation from the lighter parts
of the woman's tale.

The Ashanti army in the forest around Mampon was break-
ing up, and was falling back to the Prah River under orders
from the King of Ashanti. The sick and wounded had
already moved ; the main army would soon follow, but first
it would take Abra Crampa, a tOMTi lying some twelve miles
from Cape Coast Castle, near the forest track to the River
Prah. This news, confirmed by reports from this road of
Ashanti scouting parties having appeared in the vicinity,
put us aU in action at Cape Coast Castle. If we only had the
soldiers, what an opportunity was now offered of destroying
the retreating army of Ashantis ! It was moving across our
front at the slow rate of progression which alone was possible in
this dense forest ; but we had only a few West Indian soldiers with
which to strike it ; arms, ammunition, forty officers brimming
over with energy and action, and no men. During the foUow-

SirETCH MAP OF

English Miles

Authors Route
Other Roads

C)

A TYPICAL DAY 151

ing week some of this band of forty officers started off in as
many directions. As for myself, I had in me all the power
and go of the frozen lands I had quitted a few months earlier.
It seemed impossible that one could not still cover the old
American distances. Of course the conditions were as opposite
as those which He between the coldest ice and the hottest sun ;
but youth takes small heed of such differences or measure-
ments. Between the night of 25th October and that of the
29th, I covered some seventy miles of forest and swamps,
in a temperature a good deal higher than that of the tropical
hothouse at Kew. In these four or five days I had seen and
sampled the forest, the crooms, the kings, their armies, and
their method of fighting. A page description ^ of the 29th
October will suffice to tell the story of many days and places :

* At daybreak the whole force was to move to Dunguah from
Abra Crampa to attack the wing of the Ashanti army near that
place. The King of Abra's warriors led. A lieutenant of the
Royal Navy was attached to this tribe : by dint of extraordinary
exertions he got his crowd into some order, and cleared the village
two hours after the appointed time. They were supposed to
number five hundred men : I stood by the pathway and counted
them as they passed ; they numbered one hundred and forty of all
ranks. The procession moved in this order : six scouts, the king,
two blunderbus-men, one carr\'ing a very large horse-pistol, fifty
men with long flint-gims, two drummers with skull drums, two
men with powder barrels, a standard-bearer with an old flag,
Pollard, R.N., sixty or seventy more men, a large negro with an
entirely flat nose, and a small crimson smoking-cap for uniform (he
was called the Field-Marshal, and the title was not given in any
derisive .sense). We got to Assanchi by noon. The day was
fearfully hot ; the sun streamed down upon the forest, drawing
from the darkest depths of tangled creeper and massive tree-trunk
a steam of dense, exhausting atmosphere. As we emerged into
the overgrown plantain-gardens around the village of Assanchi, a
couple of shots were fired on the left, and an Abra scout limped
in with his legs cut by " slugs." The wildest confusion now ensued
among the Abras, and it was only by actually laying hands upon
them and by placing them in the required positions facing the
enemy that any order or plan could be evolved. While we were
at this work another volley announced a new foe in the bush on
our left. Then came shots and shouts from the thick plantain-
1 From Akim-foo, the History of a Failurt. (E. B. )

162 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

leaves, and runniiig thither I came upon six or eight men struggling
in the dense brushwood, some on the ground and some on their
legs. In the centre of the mass there was a short, stout savage
with his hair twisted into spiral spikes which stood straight out
from his head. He was fighting for his life ; and so strong was he
that he was able in his twistings to move the three or four men
who had him down. A couple of other Abras were striking him
on the back of his head wth the butts of their long " Dane " guns ;
but they were unable to stop his wri things. At the edge of the
group stood a tall Houssa soldier with a long knife in hand, ready
for an opening which would enable him to draw it across the
throat of the Ashanti. He was so intent on watching his
opportunity that he did not see me. Just as I came up the
unfortunate underdog man heaved himself up a bit from the
ground, and the movement seemed to give the Houssa the chance
he was looking for. He leant forward to get a better draw for his
knife across the man's neck ; but as he did so I caught him full
on the ear with my fist, and over he went, knife and all, into the
bushes. At the same instant the Ashanti rose, and seeing a
white man close to him he threw himself forward, caught hold of
my hand, and -s^as safe. He was the first full-blooded Ashanti
taken, and I was very glad to have him because I was doing
Intelligence work at this time for Redvers Buller, who was down
with fever, and we badly wanted sohd information from our
enemies. But what was of more importance was that Sir Garnet
Wolseley was in need of some trusty messenger to send to the
King of Ashanti in Coomassie, and this prisoner would be just
the emissary to send there. But before I could get him safe from
the crush, we were all very near coming to grief, for a fresh body
of Houssas, belonging to Baker Russell's regiment, came upon the
scene, and hearing a row going on in the bushes, they levelled half
a dozen rifles upon us, intent upon observing the great rule of
African warfare, which is to fire first and then look to see what
was fired at aftei-wards. Fortunately for us Baker Russell was
near this party : he saw the situation, and the muzzles of the
Houssa Sniders were thrown up at his terrific word of command.
By this time the marines and sailors in rear were thoroughly
exhausted ; the day was swelteringly hot, the path was deep in
mud and water, and the narrow track was only wide enough to
allow men in single file to move along it. Many strong men went
down that day, some of them did not get up again. The record
of the day's work would be incomplete if it did not finish as it
began -nith the army of the King of Abra under the command of

SPECIAL COmilSSION TO WEST AKTM 153

Lieutenant Pollard, R.N. It was directed to feel its way to the
main road at Donguah. It fell in towards evening with an
Ashanti camp : panic immediately ensued ; the one hundred and
forty Abras, the Field-Marshal, the drums, and the horse-pistol
man ran in various directions through the forest. Pollard dis-
charged the six barrels of his revolver at his vanishing army, and
found himself alone in the great forest. He was thoroughly ex-
hausted, and night was coming on. After a time six or eight of
his army crept back through the bush, got him on their shoulders
and carried him by a by-path to Akroful on the main road.'

I have dwelt upon this day's work because it grouped into
it many incidents and experiences peculiar to West African
warfare. One saw then the utter hopelessness of the original
idea upon which the expedition had been based — that our
debased and degenerate protected tribes could be able to fight
the army of the King of Ashanti. One understood, too,
something at least of what this coast climate meant to a Euro-
pean, in the waste of strength and the deadly sap of health and
energy. Even without exertion, the strength of the body
seemed to be hourly melting out of the system. It was now
the end of October. Two entire months must elapse before
white troops could arrive on the coast from England. Would
we last over that interval ? Of all the strange things in life
human hope is the strangest. No matter how dark it may be
on this side of the hiU, the other side generally gets the credit
of sunshine. If life is reaUy a vale of tears, there are bursts
of laughter coming through the sobs from some imaginary
upper glen.

Work in a new region now opened for me. In a kingdom
called Akim, some hundred or hundred and fifty miles north-
east from Cape Coast Castle, there reigned two kings — Cobina
Fuah and Coffee Ahencora, both of whom were supposed to be
of better fighting quality than the sable monarchs dwelling
near the coast.

A commission to these Akim sovereigns was duly given to
me, and I was directed to proceed ' in one of Her Majesty's
men-of-war to Accra, as a special Commissioner to the king
and queen and chiefs of that district, in order to raise the
whole of the fighting men in Western Akim for the purpose of
closing in Amonquatier's army as it is endeavouring to re-cross

154 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the river Prah into Ashanti. ... It is impossible/ went on
the words of the Commission, ' to give jou more precise instruc-
tions, and there is nothing to add further than that the major-
general relies upon your zeal and discretion, and on your know-
ledge of barbarous people, to carry out quickly the objects of
this most important mission which has been confided to you.'

My Commission bore date 2nd November, and by the evening
of the 3rd I had got together a dozen Snyder rifles, two Union
Jacks, a few servants, ammunition, a bag of a hundred gold
pieces, some AustraUan turned meats, and a lot of proclama-
tions and addresses to black kings and queens in general, but
particularly to the potentates reigning in the regions lying
behind the coast at Accra. By dint of hard labour everything
was ready for embarkation, and I got on board the gunboat
Decoy late in the afternoon. Steam was already up, and we
were soon rolling along to the eastward, pitching and tossing
from one side to the other m those gigantic waves which never
cease to roll, night and day, against the shores of tropic Africa.
We rocked all night in the cradle of the deep, and at daybreak
were off Accra. Another big slave castle was here, and the
huge bastions of yet another prison could be seen three miles
deeper in the Bight, at Christianburg. The last ghmpse seen of
the shore after sunset on the previous evening had been of slave
castles ; the first sight in the morning was of slave castles ;
and round that fatal coast-line, between the feverish forest and
the yellow sand, they stand, now lonely and mitenanted, with
rusty gates and empty vaults, the mouldering monuments of
two centuries of a gigantic mjustice.

I got on shore as quickly as possible, for the night had been
one of sleepless torment. Here at Accra the debasement of
the negro seemed to be even greater than at Cape Coast Castle.
A great ' Custom ' was going on to celebrate the movement of
Captain Glover's native force from Accra to Addah, at the
mouth of the Volta. ' Dashes ' of rum and gunpowder had
been plentiful for days earlier, and the result was to be
seen in men lying on their backs along the foul sea-front,
firing guns into the air, turning head over heels, and firing
as they turned, and uttering a strange mixture of Coast-
Enghsh curses and invocations to some forest fetich for fortune
in their coming campaign.

THE MARCH TO ASHANTI BEGINS 155

All that day and the next day I spent m Accra, endeavouring
to evolve out of this hideous scene of naked and unabashed
negro animalism the semblance of a sober convoy for my inland
journey to Akim. Night came, but no convoy. The gun-firing
might have been less than on the first day ; but the drunk-
enness did not appear to have diminished. I had, however,
the satisfaction on the first day of making the acquaintance
of one of the most remarkable among the many remarkable
persons to whose efforts are due the estabUshment of our
Empire in Africa — Captain Glover, R.N. He had spent many
years on the shores of the Bight of Benm. To him more than
to any other man belongs by right the merit of being the first
to discover the value of the trade which lay at the back of this
equatorial coast forest, behind the kingdoms of Ashanti,
Dahomey, and Benin. Forty years from the present time.
Glover, as governor and maker of Lagos, had alreadj^ foreseen
the possibilities of forming a British possession which would
embrace the countries of the Niger from its source to the sea.
He was before his time. That great region has now many
claimants for its possession, and it is still a matter of doubt
in what direction its trade will eventually seek its outlet.

On the evening of the 5th November I got away from Accra
with a very motley crowd of carriers, the greater part of whom
were still under the influence of the ' Custom.' I have not space
to tell in any detail of the march from Accra to the Akim
Prah. On the second day I had marched my men into a
state of semi-sobriety ; but new difficulties arose. My kings,
Fuah and Ahencora, had heard of the largesse distributed by
Captain Glover at Accra, and they had both set out from
Akim to share in these wonderful ' dashes,' which, no doubt,
rumour had magnified to them. Two days from Accra I
met King Fuah moving in all the pomp of negro buffoonery
towards the coast. It was a repetition of Pollard's army,
with variations — sword and pipe bearers, horn blowers,
umbrella men, skull mace-bearers, litter-carriers, three of the
king's wives, bodyguards, and at last King Fuah himself. We
had been exchanging messengers for three days : he beseeching
me to await his arrival at Accra ; I sending emissaries to tell
him that he must return to his own country, whither I was
coming ; that he was turning his back upon the Ashanti enemy ;

156 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

that there were only old women left at Accra, and that it was m
his own kingdom of Akim that I would bestow upon him the
gifts, arms, and ' dashes,' which I was commissioned to give
him by the general-in-chief at Cape Coast Castle. AU to no pur-
pose. So now we met at a place called Edoocfoo, three marches
from Accra. I was in no frame of mind to brook delay in
opening this palaver. I told King Fuah exactly the state of
afifairs : Captain Glover was not the commander of this expedi-
tion, neither was he the head dispenser or ' dash '-giver of all
the good things of negro life ; I read and explained Sir Garnet
Wolseley's letter ; I told Cobina of Akim the exact position
of affairs, now that the Ashantis, broken and disheartened, were
retreating on the Prah, offering to him the precious opportunity
of striking them in flank and destroying them, if he would now
return with me to his kingdom, get out his fighting men, and
move with me against his ancient enemy, at whose hands he
had suffered so many injuries in this and other wars. All was
useless. To Accra he must go, for it was there that fetish
should be done, and ' Custom ' carried out. I tried manj''
things with this obstinate Akim. I ' dashed ' him six Snyder
rifles, ammunition, wine, as an earnest of what things would
be his if he did as the English general wished him to do. I
tried first to work on his greed, then on his greedmess, and
finally upon his sense of shame. He had had a good name in
Cape Coast Castle, would he add to it by coming back with
me, or destroy it by running away to Accra where there were
only women and cowards left ? ' TeU him,' I said to the
interpreter, ' that I can never go back : I must go forward.
If he returns with me now he will become the greatest king
that ever reigned in Akim ; if he goes on to the coast he will
cover himself with disgrace and his name wiU be a byword.'
No use. To Accra he must go. So we parted.

Weary beyond words, I set my face to the north, and plodded
on to the next miserable croom. This was West Coast war ;
these were the poor, down-trodden people we had come to
give our lives for. I positively laughed as the full absurdity
of the position forced itself upon me. In the evening I reached
a town called Koniako, where dwelt an old chief named
Quassiquadaddie, in whose house I stopped the night. It
was clean and comfortable, with walls neatly plastered, and a

HALTED 157

good four-posted bed in an inner room — the best habitation
I saw on the coast outside the towns. Quassiquadaddie did
the honours admirably, and, what was of more importance,
he was full of valuable information of route and distance.
Another day's march brought me to Eniacroom, where my
second long, Coffee Ahencora, was awaiting me. He too was
bound for ' Custom ' to Accra, but my messengers had stopped
him. After another long palaver I succeeded in effecting a
change of purpose, largely due to my being able to pit his
prospects if he went back to the Prah with me against those
of his rival monarch Fuah who had disregarded mj wishes and
continued his course to the coast. But he would do nothing
in a hurry, and in this matter of getting a slap at the Ashantis
before they crossed the Prah, hurry was the whole essence of
the problem. I was marching two, perhaps three, miles to
their one.

Here at Eniacroom I had to wait two whole days while
this second king was making up his mind, with the aid of a
score of counsellors, as to what he would do. The heat
was intense all this time. The women of the town came to
stare at me in great numbers : all day while light lasted they
flocked round my hut, looked through windows, round comers,
and along the tops of mud walls. Although the feeling of being
constantly stared at is not a pleasant one, there were circum-
stances in this case which made it less irksome than it might
have been. With the exception of the very young girls and
the old women, the majority of the ladies had babies with
them ; these they carried seated astride on a sort of bustle
held to the small of the back by a thin piece of cotton cloth.
The manner in which these little black babies kept looking
round their mothers' backs, and groping with tiny fingers for
the maternal bosom in front, was very comical ; and one
marvelled at the exceeding patience with which the mother
bore the constant importunities of her offspring. But patience
is the everlasting lesson of Africa. ' What patience is required
in this African travel ! ' I find myself writing on this day, 1 1th
November. The king came to see me frequently. He would
return with me to his town, Akim-Swaidroo ; but he had to
settle a dispute with a neighbouring chief on the waj'^ : would
I act as arbitrator in the matter ? WTiat was it about ?

158 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

About a goat. The oath of friendship which this chief had
sworn to him had not been sealed by the killing of a goat : the
omission of this sacrificial rite was the cause of the dispute.
What was my opinion ? I replied that the matter was of such
importance as to render its postponement until after the ter-
mination of the war imperative. This view did not seem to
suit the king or his comicil ; and they aU began a laboured
exposition of the question at issue, ending by again urging
that I would use my influence to bring the recalcitrant chief
to a sense of his transgression. WTiile still adhering to the
necessity of postponing the case, I indulged in some observa-
tions upon goats in general ; I further remarked that they were
perfectly distinct and different from sheep, and this being the
case, I thought that mutual concessions would best advance
the interest of all parties. When the interpreter had got these
profound opinions into their Akim equivalents, I was astonished
to observe an expression of agreement on the faces of the
king and his counsellors. They uttered a kind of prolonged
* Hah,' which I read as a sort of * I told you so.' They would
start, they said, to-morrow. Night came at last to end the
visits and the begging, and to hide the black faces at windows
and doorways, corners and chinks ; and I lay down to sleep
with the prospect of a start next morning. But there was
one thing the night could not hide : that these past twenty days
of toil had told terribly on my health and strength. The
desire for food had grown less and less ; a lassitude never felt
before had come upon me ; sleep brought with it no sense of
rest or refreshment.

At last I got away from Eniacroom. The king and his
retainers were also on the road. The march was only one of
eight miles, but it taxed all my strength to accomplish it.
The path was deep in mud, and the hammock could not make
way among the crowded and tangled trees, so I went on on
foot. A raging thirst consumed me, and whenever we reached
running water I had to drink deeply. What, I asked myself,
was this strange, dry feeling ? Only some passing ailment, I
thought : I will walk faster and shake it off. We were now in
a forest of prodigiously large trees, matted imdemeath with
tendrils and creeping plants. Those giant trees seemed as
endless pillars on an endless road. I reached another croom,

SPLENDID BEARING OF OUR OFFICERS 159

and sat down in a porch while a hut was being prepared. The
dry heat of the skin grew drier ; the thirst became more
incessant ; then came a pain that seemed to be everywhere
at once — the dull, dead, sick pain of African fever.

Hitherto I have written in detail of the Ashanti War of
1873 through the first three or four weeks of my personal
experience of it. I have done so because I wished to put before
the reader a picture of life with the real negro at home. I
thought also that the narrative might be of use as showing
these little wars, which have been so frequent in our history
during the past fifty or sixty years, in comparison with the big
wars of earUer days, the wars which OtheUo thought ' made
ambition virtue.' These old wars seem to me to bear the same
relation to our modern wars — opium wars, colonial wars, which
might fitly be called ' sutlers' ' wars — as the glory of an old
EngUsh cathedral of Plantagenet times compares with the
meanness of houses and shops that are grouped around its base.

This Ashanti War of 1873-74^ has been forgotten long ago.
Pestilence kiUed ten men for every one knocked over by a
bullet. Now, when more than thirty years have passed, I
look back on all the toil and sweat and sickness of that time,
and the picture I see is a sad but splendid one — men, the best
I ever met with in my long service, toiling on, despite of fever
and dysenter}^ over narrow forest paths ; some of them worn
to skeletons, all with drawn, haggard features ; down with
fever one day, staggering along the dark path the next day ;
eating wretched food ; fighting, urging, wrestling with recalci-
trant carriers ; streaming with perspiration at aU times ; yet
always putting a good face upon the worst ills that fortune
sent them.

And, fixed as that picture of the human factor, I see another
memory — that great, gloomy forest ; these endless arches of
colossal cotton trees, under which two other growths of forest
flourish, the lower one a mass of tangled and twisted ever-
greens, the middle one hung with spiral creepers hke huge
serpents hundreds of feet in length. Below aU there is the
hot, wet earth emitting foul odours from its black mud-holes,
and many pools of slime-covered water. There is dense fog in
the early mornings — a ' thick smoke ' the natives caUed it — fierce
sun on the lofty tree-tops at midday ; but only in fretted

160 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

patches can the hot rays reach the ground through these great
trees, of which the trunks run up one hundred feet without a
branch, and then spread forth for another hundred feet into
massive limbs, every one sulBficient to make a forest tree.
Evening. A splash of water upon aU the land ; rain pours
upon the big leaves m ceaseless torrents, and the roll of thunder
crashes loud and long over the echomg forest depths. So
closely does the forest hem in the crooms that if one could
walk along its upper surface, one would look right down into
the little clusters of mud and wattle huts which form the
village homes.

In this forest and in these crooms I now spent three very
long months, the longest I ever remember. During November,
December, and January I marched about nine hundred miles —
every day with a little more difficulty. Not a week went by
but my bout of fever came. Sometimes it would last two
days, sometimes only a night ; but always one rose from the
wretched bed on the earthen floor a little weaker and thinner,
until at last the bones seemed all that was left of the body.
Long before the campaign was over I was able to join the
ends of thumb and forefinger and run the loop thus made from
wrist to elbow, and from elbow to shoulder, without having
to open the circlet. The body wasted in a similar proportion.
How I was able to walk was often a subject of wonder to me.
A year earlier I had been doing twenty and thirty mile marches
daily on snow-shoes, with dogs, along the frozen Peace River ;
and as then I had attributed hardiness m the cold largely to the
fact that I had bathed in the open sea during a previous winter,
so now I believed I was able to walk this tropic forest, not-
withstanding a state of extreme emaciation, because that
fifteen hundred mile tramp in the snow had habituated my
legs to marching.

Of this fever, which began, as I have said, on the march
from Eniacroom to Dobbin, I must say something. I can
never forget that first attack. For three days and nights I
lay in the corner of a very small hut on a door with two logs
of wood under it and a blanket spread over it. I drank in-
cessantly, and was always thirsty. The fingers seemed to be
lighted candle ends ; the throat was parched ; the mouth was
fiUed with an odious taste ; every bone and joint ached ; the

IN THE GRIP OF THE FEVER 161

head reeled with a sickness worse than that of a rough sea ;
when sleep came, it brought terrible visions, so that one would
say on waking, ' I must not go to sleep again/ I had, of course,
no doctor, and but one or two medicines. I swallowed large
doses of quinine — twenty grains at a time. WTien the night
grew still, and the incessant noises of the negroes' daily village
life ceased, loathsome things came out from the mud walls and
thatched roof and prowled about my room. A large black rat
ran several times across my door-bed as I lay tossing upon it in
sleepless pain.

On the morning succeeding the third night of this misery
some lightening of the fever must have come : I was in a pro-
fuse perspiration, terribly weak, but could breathe more freely.
The idea of escape from this foul sick-room came to me. If
I could only get out of this horrible place I should be better ;
and if I did not get better, the big forest would be a fitter
place to die in than this hateful hole. There was not a soul
to speak to ; the candle, stuck in a bottle, had died out ; the
night was wearing towards daybreak ; that strange little animal
of the sloth species, which gives out a series of terrible shrieks
as the dawn is drawing near on the Coast, was already sending
his dismal howls through the forest. I got off the bed and
staggered to the hut window. Day was breaking ; the croom
and the forest were wrapped in fog, but, above, the stars could
be seen. I was horriblj'' weak, for no food had passed my lips
during three days. The cool air seemed to revive me, and I
felt that I must tear myself out of the grasp of this fever. I
called my servant ; he roused the hammock men ; for the
first time they were ready, and I was carried out of the still
sleeping village before daylight had fully come. For ten days
following this day the routine was the same : night usually
brought a return of the fever — more quinine, more perspiration;
in the morning less fever and less strength.

King Ahencora, finding that I had left Dobbin and
was making for his capital of Swaidroo, set out at once
after me. AATien I reached Swaidroo I was scarcely able
to stand ; but my brain was clear enough to reahse that
this so-called city of a strong king was just like a score of
other crooms through which I had passed ; that the Akims
were exactly as all the other tribes — Assins, Denkeras, Arbias,

L

162 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Accras, and Agoouahs had been — a hopeless lot of craven
beggars.

I must run quickly through the crowded events of the next
three months. After twenty days of travel, palavers, toil,
and fever I reached the Prah at Prahsu with a following of
one chief, three scouts, and twenty-six Akim soldiers. This
was the total muster which had rallied to my call ! My first
king was still doing fetish at Accra ; my second monarch had
reported himself very lame that morning from a place twenty
miles to the rear.

The last six miles of the paths to the Prah presented a very
gruesome appearance ; dead bodies lay along it in advanced
stages of decomposition ; the stench was horrible ; and every-
thing betokened the stricken state in which the Ashanti army
had crossed the sacred river, the banks of which I was the first
white man to reach.

The first phase of the war was now over ; the next would
open with the invasion of Ashanti when the British tro®ps
had arrived at the Coast.

The plan of invasion was as follows : — the entire English
force was to move along the main road to Prahsu, cross the
river, and advance straight upon Coomassie. I was again
instructed to visit Akim, collect as many men as I could
gather in that kingdom, cross the Prah at a place some thirty
miles higher up stream, and invade Ashanti on my own
account. Thirty miles still farther to my right. Captain
Glover was to lead all the Volta natives he could collect together,
with nine hundred or a thousand disciplined Houssas, into
Ashanti. The date for this simultaneous crossmg of the
frontier was fixed for the 15th January. I did not get back
to West Akim until the 23rd December, so that I had three
weeks in which to prepare, collect, organise, arm, and equip this
new expedition. It would be impossible now to go over again
these three weeks' work. It will suffice to say that I reached
the Prah at a place called Beronassie on 13th January, to find
a following of about one hundred Akims, and with a pulse
beating at about the same figure. A bad night of fever fol-
lowed the long, hot march over a rugged track, filled in many
places with stagnant water, and crossed by roots of trees laid
bare by rain torrents. Again came the old routine of the

THE FRONTIER CROSSED 163

night, now so familiar — the wakeful hours, the sickness, the
wet fog, the dayhght, the lightening of the fever. As I lay-
in the languor of the next day, messages came from Fuah
and Ahencora, from Darco and other chiefs, all secretly de-
hghted that the white man was down again ; and that three
other English officers, who had just arrived from the main road
to assist in this new expedition, were also lying, some ten
miles back on the road I had come, prostrate with fever.
' Surely I will delay the crossing of the Prah,' they urge. ' No,
the orders are the 15th.' On the 15th I was able to move
again, and I set out for the Prah — three miles. I found an
advanced guard of some fifty Akims on the near bank of the
river. ' Move your men across,' I said to the chief in com-
mand, ' and make camp on the Ashanti shore.' ' They could
not cross,' he said, ' they were too few ; the Ashanti fetish
held the river ; they must wait until more men had come
up.' * Then we shall cross alone,' I said. ' It is the day named
by the English general : his orders must be obeyed.' Two of
the three sick officers had arrived that morning. We rested
a while in the Akim camp ; then I told the policemen to carry
a few loads down to the edge of the ford. There was a ridge
of sand in the centre of the river, and beyond it the current
ran deep and strong. We waded to the sand island ; then
divesting ourselves of clothes, we took the deeper water.
In the centre it rose to our lips ; then we just touched bottom,
caught the outlying branches of a fallen tree, and climbing
through them, got to the farther shore. It was midday. Not
a sound stirred in the great forest. The Akims stood in
groups on the south shore gazing at the white man's doings.
The sight was certainly a curious one : three white men and
six native policemen carrying baggage had invaded Ashanti.

CHAPTER XI

An excuse for the craven native. End of the expedition. Near death from
fever. Queen Victoria's visit to Netley. Companion of the Bath. Start
for Natal. With Sir Garnet Wolseley again. Protector of Indian
immigrants. The Tugela. Through the Orange Free State.

As these days now come back iii recollection, I could easily
write a volume about them. Their strangeness has grown
stranger to me. It is all thirty-five years ago, and a thousand
other scenes have crossed the looking-glass since then, and yet
in that infinite wonder, the mirror of memory, I seem to see
it all to-day perhaps even in truer perspective than I was able
to see it in then.

Looking back now upon that big forest, with its days of
disappointment, its nights of sickness, its toilings under those
gloomy green arches, the endless vistas of that gigantic laby-
rinth of trees, the horrible brain-pictures that grew in the long,
dark hours when the brain still saw after the eyes closed, I can
perceive things that I did not discern then. I see much that
was good and human in these poor black savages — true and
faithful service, patience, honesty, strange childlike accepta-
tion, doglike fidelity. These traits were common among them,
the lower ranks possessing a hundred times more of them than
the upper ones. After all, we were expecting too much from
these Coast negroes. Firstly, we expected they would accept
as truth everything we told them ; but why should they ?
For three or four hundred years the white man had robbed,
tricked, and enslaved them ; had dragged them m hundreds
of thousands from their homes, crowded them into foul ships,
lied to them, lashed them, cheated them in trade. What
reason was there now that they should thmk honest, truthful
men had all at once come amongst them, whose words they
were to believe at the first sound ? I once asked the best and
most truthful negro I met on the Coast this question, * When
a white man speaks to a black one, what does the black man

164

OUR DEALINGS WITH THE NATIVE 165

think of what he is told ? Does he believe it ? ' ' No,' was
the prompt reply, ' he thinks every word the white man says
is a lie.' Secondl}', we expected to find among them the
habits of punctuality, obedience to command, order, and even
discipline, which wc had been accustomed to find at home ;
but surely this was wrong. It was our drink, our trade, our
greed, which had hopelessly demoraHsed the native African.
We wrung our wealth out of his sweat ; we drugged him with
our drink ; we shot him with our guns ; we sold him powder
and lead, so that he might shoot and enslave his fellow-black.
These castles along his Coast were the monuments of our
savage injustice to him.

Thirdly, we were wrathful with the tribes of the Coast
because they did not at once turn out and fight the Ashanti at
our bidding. In this, too, we were looking for more than we
had a right to expect. WTien the Ashantis had come down
upon the tribes six months earlier, the help we had been
able to give these tribes against their enemies was of the feeblest
sort. In that invasion they had suffered almost everything that
they could suffer ; thousands had been killed, all the villages
had been destroyed, the fetish trees cut down. ' The way-
side,' says one very accurate writer,^ ' was littered with corpses,
with the dj^ing, with women bringing forth children.' AU the
tribes knew this, even those whom the tide of devastation had
not reached. Why then should they have rushed at our bid-
ding again into a fray which had already proved so disastrous
to them ? It is a peculiarity with many of our people that
they do not know how much they do not know. There is
nothing in a land before thej^ came there. History began when
the first Enghsh traders arrived. Before that event there was a
blank. The erection of Smith's shop marks the year one. This
method of thinking is not confijied to traders. I remember a
very- high civil authority at the War Office once remarking to
a military officer whose business it was to take daily to him a
map showing the progress of our troops in war against the
Zulus, * Dear me ! what a lot of geography these wars teach
one.' It is a little late to begin the acquisition of that know-
ledge when the fighting has begun. But we must finish our
story.

^ Winwood Reailc.

166 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Little by little, in the days following our unique passage of
the Prah, I succeeded in getting an increasing number of
Akims over the river and inducing them to go forward with
me into Ashanti. By 22nd January we were at Yancoma,
a place about twenty miles across the frontier. No enemy had
been seen, but traces of scouts were here met with. From this
place two paths led towards Coomassie : we followed that
which went by Ennoonsu to Akim and Cocofoo. It seems a
marvel to me now how we got the Akims along. Their numbers
had increased to over one thousand, and more men were coming
in. Many of the men and a few of the chiefs were of good
stuff and spirit, but the kings and leading men were in a state
of fear that was often comical to look at. It was this element
of comicality in the black man which was the saving clause in
all the long chapter of fever, fiasco, and apparently fruitless
effort which had bj^ this time reduced my body to the condition
of a walking skeleton. I was certainly the one officer on the
Coast who had dwelt wholly and entirely among the natives.
For three months I had literally lived alone with them ; the
ways of their daily lives had become familiar to me. As the
body of the African is almost destitute of clothing, so is his
mmd an open one ; he has few concealments, physical or
mental. You think, perhaps, that only in civilised communi-
ties is the study of human nature possible, but it is not so.
Africa is the real bed-rock school of that stud3^ CiviUsation,
even at its best, has often to curb itself in order to keep its
clothes on. The African has not to write a novel when he wants
to take them off. The negroes say that Adam and Eve and
their children were aU black, and that Cain only turned white
through fear after he had killed Abel and when he found that
he could not hide the dead body of his brother. I do not
pretend to decide the question, but it is significant that the
black man to-day does not build cities, nor, if he can help it,
does he like to live in them. I have an idea that he will exist
on the earth a very long time.

We got to the Ennoon River, had a skirmish there on 25th
January, in which the enemj'' was routed and some heads
taken by the Akims. After another delay there of two dsuys I
managed to get the kings, lords, and commons of Akim, now
numbering fourteen hundred men, forward on another day's

IN TOUCH WITH THE ENEMY 167

march in the direction of the city of Cocofoo, one of the sacred
spots of Ashanti situated near the Lake Boosumaque, from the
waters of which the King of Ashanti obtained fish for his palace.
We were now well mto the old kingdom of Ashanti. Only one
among the four officers (Brabazon), who had joined me three
weeks earlier, was fit for service on this day ; two of the others
were prostrate with fever ; the fourth, MacGregor, was just able
to stagger along the track. Two hours' march brought the
advanced guard under Brabazon in contact with the enemy
at a village called Akina, situated on the top of a steep hiU
and more than one thousand feet above sea-level. Here there
was another skirmish ; we had two Akims killed, but their
heads were not taken. The Ashantis retreated, and the
village was ours. It really seemed that Fortune had at last
declared for us. I had now to close up the ranks of my extra-
ordinary army, fortify this commanding position, and boil up
the spirits of my kings for a further advance upon the enem3\

On the early morning of the 28th January a party of Ashantis
stole into our camp along a bypath, fired at and wounded some
Akims who were lymg asleep near a fire, and got away un-
molested. We had taken in Akina a very sacred fetish stool
belonging to the chief of the town ; the night raid was said
to have had for its object the recovery of this venerated relic.

I spent the 30th January urging upon the kings the necessity
of making another forward move. We must now be very near
to the main line of advance, probably only a few miles from it.
On the preceding day one of our scouting parties had entered
the town of i\Iansuah at Lake Boosumaque, which they found
deserted. They brought back news that the Ashantis were in
a camp at Cocofoo, a few miles to the north of Mansuah, and
that the King of Ashanti, Coffee Kerrikerri, was with them.
They added that there was another large camp of the enemy
at Amoaful, on the main road west of Akina. This news of the
scouts filled my kings with fear. One of them, Darco of
Accassee, chattered with terror as he urged in palaver the
dangers they were in. I had just received a despatch from
Sir Garnet Wolseley, dated Fommanah, 25th January, a
hurried postscript to which aimounced that the King of Ashanti
had acceded to all the demands of the major-general, and that
in view of his submission a speedy termination of hostilities

168 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

was probable. When I communicated this news to my kings
they one and aU declared that the King of Ashanti was a liar,
that he meant to fight, and that his people were determined
to do so. In this view they were right. The acceptation of
Sir Garnet's terms of peace was only a pretence to gain time.
Subsequent events proved that the news brought by my scouts
from Mansuah was quite correct. Ten thousand Ashantis
were at Cocofoo between Akina and Coomassie.

On the afternoon of the 30th January the entire force of
Akims on and around the hiU at Akina suddenly began to
move out of their camps back along the road we had come from
the Ennoon River. The kings had given me no warning of
this intention : my campaign in Ashanti was at an end.

A fortnight later I reached the Coast. On the march down
I met the then Captain Redvers BuUer, Head of the Intelligence
Department, and from him I heard the other side of the story.
During the two daj^^s spent in Coomassie he had collected a mass
of Ashanti information.

' Ten thousand Ashantis were gathered at Cocofoo in front
of you,' he said ; ' they were not at Amoaful. The presence
of your force at Akina until the evening of the 30th kept them
from being on our flank the next day.'

So, after all, my Akim venture had been of some service to
the campaign. There would be Uttle gained by attempting to
after-cast either what might have been if this Cocofoo army
of ten thousand had been present with the other ten thousand
which fought so stiffly at Amoaful on 31st January ; or again,
what might have happened if they had fallen upon my fifteen
hundred or two thousand Akims at Akina ; or again, what
would have come to pass if I had succeeded m inducing my
kings to make another forward move on that Slst. Of aU the
might-have-beens, those in war are the most futile.

In Sir Garnet Wolseley's despatch to the Secretary of State,
written on the evening of the day upon which he left Coomassie,
this sentence occurs : —

' So far as the interests of the expedition under my orders are
concerned, Captain Butler has not failed, but most successfully
achieved the very object which I had in view in detaching him for
the work he so cheerfully and skilfully undertook. He has effected
a most important diversion in favour of the main body, and has

NEAR DEATH 169

detained before him all the forces of one of the most powerful
Ashanti Chiefs.'

Although I got down to the sea the wreck of a wreck, I
imagined that all my troubles were past, and that I should
only have to get on the deck of a transport and lie down to
rest for twenty days. That was not to be.

Three or four days after I reached Cape Coast Castle a virulent
fever, compared to which the other intermittent fever I had
suffered had been as nothmg, suddenly burst upon me like a
thief in the night, and the pent-up poison of the long toil
broke out in overwhelming illness. I possess no record of the
next two or three months, and only a very dim recollection
of the earlier half of that period. I was embarked on board
an old and indifferent steamship which was told off for the
conveyance of sick and wounded from the Coast. Twenty-six
officers, mostly suffering from fever and dysentery, had to be
put in hammocks below the main-deck. The accommodation
for sick people was very bad. The heat was intense ; most of the
attendants were themselves either sick or convalescent. Some-
thing happened on the third or fourth night after sailing, the
exact particulars of which I cannot recall ; but I remember
leaving my swinging cot below, climbmg to the open deck,
and being there in the night air with very scanty covering for
some time. Then there was a crash, and I remember striliing
some hard substance with mj* head as I fell upon the deck.
How long I remained lying unconscious on that wet deck I do
not know ; but aU at once consciousness returned, and with it
a numbed sort of fear. I remember getting down the steps
of the ladder as best I could, and regaining my cot. Next
morning the doctor found me in the highest fever. It would
not be possible to speak or write of the next ten days' suffering.
Sleep left me — nothing was able to bring it back. At last
death was supposed to have come one morning. I dimly
remember people gathered about the cot, and one good comrade
asking in my ear for my last wishes. I remember, too, suddenly
declaring that I died a Catholic. Then there is a blank, but
not altogether, for I can recoUect that after the usual final
settlings of face and Umbs had been made — the eyes closed,
and the sheet drawn over the laid-out figure — there was a

170 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

curious indistinct idea in my brain that it was not as people
supposed ; that I was still conscious, and even that I was
being carried by invisible hands, or being floated on towards
a great cloud-veil, the passing through which it seemed was to
be the final passage out of life. There was no sensation of
bodily pain. How long I lay in this condition I don't know,
but I remember men coming agam about the cot, lifting the
sheet, and touching me and talking to each other. Then I
thought, ' These men are about to prepare my body for the
sea ' ; and as in these hot latitudes the time between death
and burial in the ocean was a very short one, I felt the extreme
horror of the situation, and longed to be able to make some
sign or movement by which they might know that I was not
really dead. Next I heard one of the men who was moving
my limbs suddenly say to his comrade, ' I don't think he 's
dead.' It was ' Bill,' or ' Tom,' or ' Jack,' but I have forgotten
which name it was. The other man replied, ' Dead ? you
something or other, why, I saw him die at eight o'clock this
morning.' Then there was some more arm lifting or moving,
and the man who had first spoken went on, ' Well, I don't
think he 's dead ; anyway, I '11 go for the doctor.' Then more
people came about the swinging cot ; something was done,
and I awoke or became actively conscious again.

For many days after this coming back I lay hovering on the
brink — a shuttlecock between life and death. One day I had
a narrow escape. I jumped from the cot suddenly in raging
delirium, and rushed along the mam-deck, looking for any
exit that might promise escape. I sprang mto the first open
door ; it was the cook's galley. Men caught hold of me ; the
skeleton had the strength of six sound men. I could not be
got out of the place until an old acquaintance came. Then I
went quietly back with him. After that I was put into a
closed cabin, and special men were told off to watch day and
night. As we slowly sailed into cooler latitudes the fever of
the brain grew less ; and at Madeira a Portuguese clergyman
came off to the tossmg ship, bad sailor though he was, to
bring to the ' ruckle of bones ' the final ministrations of that
Faith, the tinkle of whose Mass-bell — more continuous and
far-reaching even than the loud drum beat of England which the
American imagined circling the earth and keeping company

NETLEY HOSPITAI^-PROMOTION 171

with the hours — carries its morning message of mercy to the
sinners of the world.

I lay for two months m Netley Hospital, and at last, when
the summer was half over, was declared fit for the outer world
again. Of course, I missed all the rejoicings, the feastings, and
the field days that followed the return to England of the
victorious general and his little army, but I was not forgotten
at Netley by queen or country. Her Majesty came to my
bedside and spoke some very gracious words to me, among
them being a message of peculiar thought and kindliness.
' When Sir Garnet Wolseley rode up to my carriage at the
Wmdsor Review, the Duke of Cambridge whispered to me,
" If you wish to please Sir Garnet, the first question should be
an inquiry for Captain Butler." '

In the Ashanti Gazette I was promoted to a majority in the
army, and made a Companion of the Bath. It now only
remained to get into the Bath-chair to which I had also been
appointed, by the excellent doctor at Netley. And here I
desire to say a word about a body of gentlemen-servants of
the State with whom a long active life made me familiar — the
medical officers of the army, I have known them m many
lands, and mider the varying conditions inevitable to military
life. I never knew them to fail. There is no finer sight in
war than the figure of a military surgeon kneelmg beside a
wounded man just behind the fighting line. Shots may come,
and shots may go, but the surgeon goes on at his work, quietly,
coolly, and with hand as steady and dexterous, and gaze as
concentrated on his business, as though the scene were
the operating-room in a London hospital.

Until the close of my work in Akim I had no doctor with
me ; then one was sent at the time the three officers, Brabazon,
Paget, and MacGregor, joined my column. The doctor, Lowe,
was a big breezy sort of man, who on his arrival laughed at
malaria. ' It is only a convenient professional expression,'
he said. A day or two later he was ' down with fever ' at
Yancoraa, and for the rest of my short campaign I had him
carried in a hammock.

At long last I got away from Netley. I made for the west
coast of Ireland, to regain, if possible, the health and strength
which seemed to have been hopelessly lost on the west coast

172 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of Africa. I was stiU able to move only a few yards on my
feet, so I drove as much as I could. The outside car, the great
cliffs of Clare, and the heatherj^ glens of Kerry — ^these were
now my doctors. In three weeks I was feeling a different man,
though still very weak. At last I came to a little seaside
hotel where a few fisher and shootmg folk formed the company.

One day in late September some of them asked me to go into
a neighbouring bog to look for somethmg. I went with them.
A snipe got up in front of me ; the effort to get the gun to the
shoulder caused me to stagger, but there was a bank close by,
and I leant against it while aiming. Bang ! the snipe was
down. I was well.

I was loth to leave these wonderful scenes which had given
me back hfe's most precious gift, and, learnmg to walk, I
tarried off and on among the Kerrj^ hills, shooting and writing.

One da}^ in February 1875 a telegram came from Sir Garnet
Wolseley in London : —

' Come at once, and be ready to start with me for South Africa
on Thursday.'

My book on Akim-land ^ was all but finished. I put up the
MS., packed my things, and was in London the next day.

Then I heard what the telegram meant. Sir Garnet Wolseley
was going to Natal in a joint civil and military capacity —
Governor and High Commissioner. He had asked four of his
old Ashanti staff to go with him. I was one of them. Five
days later we sailed from Dartmouth for Cape Town and
Durban. The voyage was then of nearly twice the duration
that it is to-day, and we had full time to study the work to be
done, as our vessel steamed slowly southwards, skirting these
same jaws of Benin, which, just a year ago, had all but closed
their bite upon me. One day, while steammg through this
steaming sea, something went wrong with the machinery,
and we stopped for a few hours to set it right. A large number
of sharks gathered about the ship. The water was very clear,
and with the sun straight overhead it was possible to see down
through its unruffled surface to a great depth. The sailing
voyage to India fifteen years before had taught me something
of a shark's ways in these waters, for we had lain becalmed in

^ Akim-J'oo, the Hiiitory of a Failure. (E. B. )

SAILING FOR NATAL 173

thera for many days. I crumpled a newspaper together and
dropped it over the stern. A huge shark came swimming
upward towards the white floating object. I had a rifle laid
on it ; as he snapped, I fired. The bullet hit him fair in the
head ; he turned a complete somersault out of the water aijd
lay dead as a stone on the surface ; then the great body began
to sink slowly, belly upwards. It was curious to watch it
fathoms and fathoms below, the glare of the tropic sun striking
on the snow-white body as on a looking-glass. ' I have sailed
the sea for thirty years,' said our captain, ' but that is the first
shark I ever saw shot dead.'

All the members of this new mission had been former comrades
on the Coast with me. Colonel Pomeroy Colley, whose extra-
ordinary' vigour and energj^ a few months earlier had saved
the transport service from collapse on the Gold Coast, was the
only ofiicer among our group who had had previous service in
South Africa. Major Henry Brackenbury ^ had also distin-
guished himself in the late campaign as military secretary to
Sir Garnet Wolseley ; and Captain Lord Gifford, V.C, had a
name which was then a household word in the service and out
of it for the cool and determined courage with which he
explored with a small band of native scouts the labyrinths
of the forest in front of the Ashanti enemy, A new colonial
secretary for Natal, ]\Ir. Napier Broome, was also of our
party. He had been a recent leader-writer on the staff of
the Times.

We made a merry party. Our chief was of that rare make
of men in whom the thing we caU ' command ' in the army
is so much an essential item of their nature that one has no
more thought of questionmg it than one would think of
asking a bird why he flew, or a river why it flowed. Wolseley
was the only man I met in the army on whom command sat
so easily and fitly that neither he nor the men he commanded
had ever to think about it. And it was this fact of command
by right that made his companionship as easy to others as his
leadership was easy to himself. It was such a delight to meet
a general of a type entirely different from an\i:hing of the kind
I had ever seen before in our army, that the chief regret I had,
on this my third turn of service with him, was that I was less

^ Now Sir Henry.

174 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

likely to be of use to him now than I had been in Canada or
Ashanti.

The poison of the bite of the Gold Coast was not yet all out
of my veins, and Natal in March was said to have still a fervid
sun above it.

We reached Cape Town on 17th March, had a few days there,
and then went on in a splendid frigate, the Raleigh, to Durban.
This vessel had just been launched, the first and last of her
type, meant for steam and wind, with great engines and large
masts — a combination which our own experience was shortly
to prove useless. Sir Garnet carried a letter from the Admiralty
directing the admiral at Simon's Town to detach a ship from
the flying squadron for his transport to Natal, and the Raleigh
was placed at his service. After a dinner on board Admiral
Randolph's flagship we rowed to the Raleigh, and were received
by Captain Try on on his quarter-deck. His name will be long
associated with one of the most tragic chapters in modern
naval histor3^ In weighing anchor immediate^ afterwards
something went wrong in the operation of catting the anchor,
and, as the sea was rising before a south-easterly wind, the
huge mass of the anchor swinging just at the water-line was
considered dangerous, and there was a good deal of hauhng
work before it could be secured. Captain Tryon came into
the deck cabin where we were assembled, to explain what had
happened. The trouble was complicated because a rock known
as ' the Roman ' was only a short distance off, on the lee side,
so that if the ship went ahead the anchor would swing against
her bows, and if she didn't go ahead the wind might take us
on ' the Roman ' rock. Wolseley was seated on the table.
' My dear captain,' he said, ' on the deck of a British ship-of-
war I always feel that I am on the safest spot in the world.'
When morning came we had cleared False Ba,y and were steer-
ing in the teeth of a violent south-easter. Trj-on was a veritable
Triton, a powerfully built man, with a large strong face and a
deep voice. He spared nothmg on this occasion to make the
few days we were on his ship pleasant to us. The Raleigh
burned nearly three hundred tons of coal in twenty-four hours ;
but in the face of the south-easter she made slow progress,
and her captain and officers were not a little put out when,
in the middle of the driving mist of the first day's storm, we

NEW DUTIES 175

saw our old friend the W aimer Castle steaming slowly past us,
burning some thirty tons in the same period. But the gale
went down the next day, and then canvas had its chance,
and took it splendidly. With every stitch set on the huge
masts, the ship sped along the coasts of Kaffraria for four
hundred miles, and on 29th ]March the sight of a canvas-
clouded frigate coming up to the roadstead at Durban was
the first intimation the people of Natal had of Sir Garnet's
advent among them.

Then began some six months of most varied and interesting
work. The central object of the mission was to mduce the
Government and people of Natal to alter their Constitution,
giving to the Crown larger powers in the nomination of members
to the Legislative Council, the object being to prevent the
recurrence of certain repressive measures against the natives
which the Secretary of State considered had been hostile to
the spirit as weU as to the letter of English law.

The part which fell to my lot in the programme of work
was a varied one. I was nominated Protector of Indian
Immigrants, a position which gave me a seat on the Council
and also in the Legislative Assembly of the colony.

I had to report on the land system existing in Natal, with a
view to the introduction of British colonists, to study native
questions, and take part in the debates when the Legislative
Council was in session. Meanwhile a season of social hospitali-
ties was begun on the most lavish scale. Dinner parties at
Government House were of nightly occurrence. Dances were
constantly taking place. Within a fortnight the ladies were aU
on the new governor's side. It could not well have been other-
wise. Who could resist the fascination of this young general,
in whom an extraordinary capacity for labour of the most
serious kind was combined with a buoyancy of spirit and
natural kindness of character seldom found united in the same
individual ?

Of course, ' the attempt to tamper with the Constitution,'
as it was called by a section of Natal societj% gave rise to
considerable opposition ; and when the Legislative CouncU
met, very hvely discussions took place in that small assembly
at which ambitious Hampdens and journalistic Vanes were
present. But the whole thing was in truth a teacup tempest.

176 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The eternal African native was the sole reality in it, and all
the talking, and the travelling that was to follow the talking,
got Natal no nearer to the solution of that immense human
problem.

The longer I have watched the workings of the great and
the little representative and deliberative assemblies of the
world, the more I have been disposed to think of the dog on
the deck of a canal boat, who imagines he is pulling the load
because he stands barking at the old horse that is dragging it.
But perhaps if that dog did not think he was doing all this
work, he might be biting some of the people at the other end
of the boat.

The Natal Constitution Bill passed by a very small majority,
and then came a time of intense interest to me personally.
We started up country to visit, first, the locations from which
the tribes of Langalabalele and Putili Zulus had been recently
ejected, at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains ; then the
line of the Tugela River and the Ladysmith and Newcastle
districts ; and, finally, I was to be detached on a mission to
President Brand in Bloemfontein, the Kimberley Diamond
Fields, and Basutoland. If, a quarter of a century later, it
was to fall to my lot to hold a high civil and military position
in South Africa on my own account and to endeavour to tell
the governing powers of England of the size, weight, and sub-
stance of certain forces and quantities in the problem with which
they would then have to deal, I owe it largely, if not wholly,
to the mission I was now about to undertake, that many
warning words written and spoken by me under circumstances
of no little difficulty and complexity in that later time, were at
least found fairly accurate when all the account was closed.

We set out in mid- June for the Drakensberg, with saddle-
horses and waggons. The weather was perfect, the scenery not
to be surpassed. Tower-topped moimtaius, ten and twelve
thousand feet in height, snow-crowned and purple, rose as
Natal's western boundary wall. Along the feet of these we
travelled, each night camp measured from the last night's one
by the ' trek ' of the oxen — sometimes ten miles, sometimes
five, for there were many drifts to be crossed and hours were
often lost at some of them. But with our horses to let us rove
in front or on the flanks of the transport waggons, the shortest

IN THE ORANGE FREE STATE 177

day's trek often gave us the longest day of sport or rambling.
June is South Africa's mid-wmter, a season of brilliant sunshine
and clear frosty nights ; sunrises of great silent beauty, with
snow-white mists rising from unseen river beds, and climbing
slowly up the mountain's eastern face, thinning and dissolving
as they ascend ; evenings of still more perfect lustre when the
sun has gone down behind the many domes and turrets of the
Drakensberg, and the western sky above the serrated snow is
one vast green and saffron afterglow. These were pleasant days.

We struck the Tugela in the centre of the great angle which
half encloses it for some miles after it has come down in three
great jumps from the top of the Drakensberg ; then we jour-
neyed past scenes which, twenty-five years later, were to loom
large m our history : to Ladysmith, and up to Newcastle, a
tiny village of a dozen houses. From this place Sir Garnet
Wolseley followed the Tugela Valley, and I began my journey
through the Orange Free State to Kimberley.

At that time no land on earth seemed to lie in greater peace
and surer prospect of its continuance ; but, strangely enough,
I find in a pocket notebook I then carried a quotation which
must have expressed some foreboding in my mmd, other-
wise it would scarcely have found entry there : —

' Thus far their (the white men's) course has been marked with
blood, and with blood must it be traced to its termination either in
their own destruction or in that of thousands of the population of
Southern Africa.'

From Newcastle in a long day's ride I ascended the Drakens-
berg by the Ingogo Valley and Botha Pass, thence by post-cart
from Harrismith and Bethlehem and Winburg to Bloemfontem.
This was a five daj-s' journey. xA.bove the berg the land was
all a great rolling plain of veldt, unmarked, unfenced, with
enormous herds of blesbok, springbok, and other antelopes
grazing or galloping over it, the cart path a thin ribbon of lighter
colour winding away through a brown waste, over which
blew a wind of the keenest and most invigorating freshness.
At intervals, on either side of the road-ribbon, table-topped hills
rose near and far, breaking the dull monotony of the lower
level, until the straight lines of their summits became merged
into a distant horizon.

M

178 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

At Bloemfontein I presented my letters of introduction to
President Brand, and during the following days I had many
interviews with that remarkable man. Bloemfontein was
then onty a large village, but on market-day the place was
crowded with men in well-horsed Cape carts, or large waggons
drawn by many oxen — a fine, manly, heavy-bearded, and broad-
shouldered race of men, and with women with large fair faces,
big figures, and light brown hair. Babies were very numerous.

I passed on to Kimberley, travelling in a four-horsed post-
cart which left Bloemfontein shortly before sunset. A little
Bushman driver and two half-Hottentot, half-Bushman girls
were the only other occupants of the vehicle.

A strange green porcelain-coloured sunset tinged half the
western sky and presaged some weather turmoil from the west,
into which we were rapidly driving, and a wild storm broke
upon us before we were manj^ hours out. First, blinding dust,
then a deluge of rain, which soon turned into blinding snow,
and thunder and lightning such as I had not seen even on the
Gold Coast. The lightning was everywhere at once, so rapidly
did the vivid flashes follow one another, and simultaneously
with them came the burst and crash of the discharges. We
were moving through an atmosphere so charged with electric
currents that, looking up, I saw for the first and last time in
my life a curious phenomenon — a bluish light like that of a tall
thin candle flame extending some inches from the top of the
long whip handle which the driver had m his hand. The post-
cart owner in Bloemfontein had provided a large sheepskin
' karrosse ' for my use, but I could not allow the two wretched
Bushman girls in the back of the cart to lie cowering in the
wet snow, and the karrosse made them less miserable.

At four in the morning we reached the village of Boshoff,
the rain still falling in torrents. Next day Kimberley was
reached in baking sunshine. At that time Kimberley (or
Colesberg) was a strange place. It had just concluded a small
rebellion on its own account — had risen against its English
governor and his colonial secretary, established a provisional
government, rescued a recalcitrant storekeeper from the hands
of three constables, and done several other free and independent
things. No Dutchmen or Boers took part in this movement,
which had its origin in some Government order permitting the

A GLIMPSE OF KIMBERLEY 179

black men to work as diamond diggers for themselves. The
approach of six companies of British soldiers marching from
Cape Town had caused a general stampede of the four chief
standard-bearers of liberty — an Englishman, a German, an
Irishman, and a Natal colonist — across the border, and things
had resumed their normal condition of good-fellowship.

I found the British battalion (the 24th Regiment) encamped
at Barkle}^ on the Vaal River, north of Kimberley. It was this
battalion, with nearly all the officers who were now present
at Barkley, which was totally destroyed by the Zulus at
Isandula four years later.

Manj?^ interestmg characters had gathered in Kimberley at
this time. Eton and Harrow men ; old army officers ; young
adventurous spirits from the Cape Colony ; East End and
German Jews in great abundance — all these were to be found.
The late Mr. Rhodes was there, but I did not meet him. The
town consisted of corrugated iron and canvas, the streets were
deep in mud and empty bottles, and ten or twelve thousand
negroes were at work in Colesberg pit, which was twelve acres
in size and two hundred feet in depth. Every grade and shade
m life was represented here. There was a university man who
gave readings in the Town Hall, and his rendering of Tennyson's
* May Queen ' so deeply affected a huge Cornish miner at the
back of the audience that he ejaculated in a deep voice at the
end of the words ' For I 'm to be Queen of the May, Mother ' :
' And so am I ! ' He w^as a large, bearded man, and he appeared
so thoroughly' in earnest in the matter that the reading could
not be continued.

I got back to Bloemfontein on 23rd July, through a country
where thousands of sheep had been killed by the snow-storm ;
and after many more conversations with President Brand, in
which twenty-five years of the previous history of that part of
vSouth Africa were reviewed, I set out for Basutoland, intending
to enter Natal by a pass over the Drakensberg near the great
Tugela Waterfall, We camped at Thabanchu the first night,
where the old chief of the Barralongs, Moroko, ninety years of
age, still dwelt, and reached Maseru early the next day.

The commissioner here, Colonel Griffiths, had seen much
colonial service ; and, like Colonel Southey at Kimberley, he
had gone through campaigns in Kaffraria under Sir Harry

180 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Smith. We rode together over the remarkable table mountain
called the Berea, where the paramount Cliief Moshesh had
defeated a column of British troops in the war of 1852 ; then,
having bought a couple of Basuto ponies for the ride to Natal,
I set out on the 4th August for the head of the Calcdon River.
Unfortunately, one of the ponies came down under me on
some flat rocks as we were nearing a French Protestant mission
station at the advanced posts. The cap of my knee was deeply
cut ; but the excellent wife of the missionary dressed the
wounds, and I went on the next mornmg towards Leribe, a
ride of over forty miles, where dwelt the Basuto chief Moloppo,
the son of Moshesh, the owner of fifty wives, and reputed to be
full of craft and cunning. The agent at Leribe was Major
Bell, an old Cape Corps soldier, who had fought under Harry
Smith at Boomplatz in 1849. The next day's ride from Leribe
was through scenery of a very wild and striking character.
We were bound for the kraal of Letsika, still higher up the
Caledon. I had with me two Basuto policemen, with whom
I could not exchange a word ; but we got on well by signs,
and when one has been in the habit of living with any one
African race, it is easy to be at home with another. The root
ideas and tokens are the same everywhere ; so is the food.

Our path lay through a gorge in the mountains, at the
bottom of which the river ran in deep curves. The sun could
not reach the bottom of this glen, which was bounded on either
side by steep precipitous cliffs of sandstone rock, ending above
in turrets and spires. The path wound in zigzags up to a
ledge, upon which stood the kraal of Letsika.

Lower down on the level ground we had met a Basuto, gallop-
ing for all he knew on a grey pony, coming towards us. The
policemen called to him to stop, but as he had no bit, and only
a rope at one side of the pony's mouth, he could only pull up
by circling his steed round and round us until the animal came
to a stand for want of a smaller circle space. They had heard
I was coming, and he was riding to the nearest store, ten miles,
for some English food, coffee, sugar, etc. They had killed a
kid in the kraal. How like all these people were to old Bible
folk ! It was we who were different. We got to the kraal
with tired horses. Letsika was a good-looking young man,
and his yo-ang wife did her household work well. They had

OVER MOUNTAIN PASSES 181

evacuated their circular Basuto hut, which was swept and
ready. The kid was cooked and eaten ; then Letsika and his
wife came and sat on the clay bench that ran round the wall.
They had a Basuto Bible, printed in English letters ; t had a
story of Bret Harte's.

To Letsika's astonishment, I read, letter by letter, his Bible,
my pronunciation evoking frequent laughter ; and to my
own astonishment Madame Letsika spelt out Bret Harte in
the same manner, the French clergyman's wife having taught
her at the mission school.

As night closed, the literary entertainment was continued
by the light of a fibre wick floating in the grease of the fatted
kid.

Next day we continued the ascent, along dizzy ledges round
which the ponies crept with wonderful sure-footedness, ascend-
ing often by steps cut in the rock. I should have been glad
to dismount at these places, but as the native guides kept
their saddles, I did the same. No horse in the world can
beat a Basuto pony in mountain cUmbing.

On our left we had the Roode Berg, and on our right the
Mont Aux Sources began to show its turret tops. This is the
highest mountain south of the Zambesi, and from its sides the
largest rivers of the Transvaal, Natal, and the Cape Colony
shed their waters.

In the afternoon a violent storm came sweeping after us up
the Caledon ; its coming was preceded by a loud howling
noise lower down the valley. I was riding in front, the two
Basutos some distance behind ; they called out something to
me, but I did not imderstand, and before there was time to do
anything the wind was on us. It struck so hard that my pony
was blown off the path, fortunately landing on a slope two or
three feet lower down. After this experience we all dis-
mounted at the bad places. We reached the source of the
Caledon, then mounted the steep divide on which snow was
lying, but the gale was sweeping the ridge so furiously that
we could not stand before it. Below, on the farther side, lay
Witzic's Hoek, where dwelt Paulus Moperi, a cousin of old
Moshesh's. Paulus had been to London in early 3'ears, and
he did not appear to have been unduly astonished at anything
he had seen there. I once asked an educated negro on the

182 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Gold Coast what his people thought of Englishmen. ' Half a
fetish, half a fool,' was the answer ; ' a fetish because they do
things we can't do, and a fool because they come out here to
do them.'

From Moperi's kraal I crossed the Drakensberg by a rough
bridle path into Natal, and in a long day's ride reached the
Tugela presidency, where my damaged knee was again dressed.

Another ride of fifty miles took me from the presidency to
the valley of Colenso, by reaches of river and spurs of mountain
to which another quarter of a century would bring celebrity.

On I2th August I reached Maritzburg.

CHAPTER XII

The state of South Africa in 1875. On the Staff at the War Office. Military
administration. First meeting with Gordon. Marriage. War in Eastern
Europe. Annexation of the TranaviiaL Visit to Cyprus. The Zulu War.
Isandula. Departure for South Africa.

I FOUND all the members of our mission reassembled in
Government House, Maritzburg, after their various travels.
Reports had now to be written embodying the impressions
formed upon the different subjects of reference — native affairs,
land tenures. Crown lands, and the possible trend of affairs
in the Dutch states beyond our borders.

A notable visitor had joined Sir Garnet Wolseley's party
in the person of Mr. James Anthony Froude. My friend,
General Sir Henry Brackenbury, in a recent volume of recollec-
tions, referring to Mr. Froude's presence at this time, has said
that ' Butler got more into his (Mr. Froude's) confidence and
intimacy in a day than he (Colonel Brackenbury) had done
in six months ; in the woes of Ireland they had a subject
of deep common interest to both.' My recollections of that
pleasant intercourse and of those social gatherings round the
general's table in old Government House, at the foot of the
slope that led up to Fort Napier and the Zwart Kop, are not
quite General Brackenbury 's. He is not fair to himself. I
think that if Mr. Froude honoured me with a larger share
of liis conversation than that which he gave to my com-
panions, it was because being Irish and Catholic I presented,
perhaps, a wider target for his shots than they did. In his
own way he had a deep and fervid affection for Ireland.
His heart was set in Kerry, and I have an idea that it was
by the lessons he had learned in the study of Tudor and Stuart
times in that part of Ireland that his views of the Dutch
question in South Africa had been coloured and even moulded.
He liked, too, to try Uttle bits of religious or political badinage
upon me. I remember his asking me in a large company if I

183

184 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

had gone when at Madeira to see the Portuguese statue of the
* Winking Virgin,' which was said to be there. I said that I
had not, and gave as my reason that I had seen so many
winking ladies in England that the sight had ceased to have
novelty for me. It was afterwards that we became friends.
At this time Mr. Froude was terminating a quasi-political
mission to South Africa, undertaken at the request of Lord
Carnarvon, in the interests of the Confederation of all the
States and Colonies. What a strange retrospect those thirty-
four years present to-day ! How eager we were at our
writings, our proposals, our plans for colonisation, for native
government, better land division and tenures, extensions of
railways and telegraphs, and half a dozen other matters — so
hopeful about it all. And how exceedingly droll it must all
have seemed to the little cherub up aloft, who, no doubt, saw
the thirty years then coming as we saw the thirty years that
had gone.

At the time of this mission of ours South Africa had enjoyed
profound peace for a quarter of a century. Two weak battalions
of infantry sufficed to give it garrison. Old racial issues were
disappearing ; that best form of race-amalgamation was
steadily progressing — intermarriage. Then began, first at
Kimberley, and later in the other mining centres, the intro-
duction of the new element, the preaching of the religion of
' the top Dog and the under Dog ' ; the bounder suddenly let
loose in the ' Ilhmitable,' to be followed by a quarter century
of strife and bloodshed, until to-day we are arrived at the
precise spot — Confederation — which Mr. Froude and a few
other people then strove for, and which was just as possible
and as attainable at that time as it has been found to be
to-da5^ In the eye of the very young child and in that of
the old man there is the same strange look of surprise,
the wonder of what it is all about, and the question of ' What
it was all for.' And doubtless so it wiU be to the end,
until we can aU sit with the cherub and see both sides of the
Bwing.

Not the least interesting among the personahties met with
in this visit to South Africa was the then Mr. (Sir) Theophilus
Shepstone. In the earlier days of my journey, while we were
Btill in that beautiful region in Natal lying at the foot of the

MR. SHEPSTONE AND DR. COLENSO 185

Drakensberg Mountains, that quiet land of the Putili and
Langalabeleli tribes, I enjoyed many a day's companionship
with Mr. Shepstone. He had begun to study human philosophy
at the bed-rock. He had lived among the Zulus from his child-
hood. HaK the philosophers of the world have to go dowTi
from the class before they can go up to the clouds. They are
like plants nurtured in a hot-house, unable to stand in the
open. Shepstone had been alwaj's in the open. With him the
years had drawn out the telescope of hfe to its full focus ; he
saw long distances, and, moreover, the hills on the horizon
had other sides for him. He had the native habit of long
silences ; then something would occur — the sight of a blesbok
on a hill-top, a flower by the wayside, an outcrop of some
coloured rock in a landslide — and the silent spring of thought
would begin to flow in words. He would repeat some anecdote
heard from an old Zulu chief a generation earher, told in those
quaint conceits of language which the wild men fashion so
easilj^ out of the winds, the waters, and wilderness in which
they live. People wonder how men whom we call barbarous
have so often in their hves a natural level of right and wrong,
a sense of good and evil which we imagine belongs to our-
selves and our civilisation only. They forget that in nature
every^thing has a right and a wrong side, and that it is only in
art you have to teach people on which side the shadow falls.
I think that a day's ride in the company of that old white
Zulu chief and statesman was worth a whole term in a
University.

Shepstone made one mistake in his life ; but of that later.

Another friend met at that time in Natal was Dr. Colenso,
a brave and devoted soldier fighting an uphill battle against
the greeds and cruelties of man. He was not in touch with
the majority of his fellow-colonists in those days, for causes
which will be famihar to readers of Nathaniel Hawthorne fifty
years ago, or of Olive Schreiner in our own time. When you
cut down the forest or clear the brushwood in a new colony,
the first crop that springs from the soil has many weeds in it.
It is inevitable that it should be so ; perhaps it is even neces-
spiTj. The man who doesn't know how much he doesn't know
may have his uses in a new land, where there is plenty of
space.

186 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

We left Natal early in September, and reached London a
month later.

It was an interesting moment, the close of the j^-ear 1875.
Mr. Disraeli, having then fairly settled his account with home
poUtics in the previous eighteen months of office, was free to
launch forth into foreign enterprises. Some great specialist
of the brain had said that until his sixtieth year a man was
himself, that from sixty to seventy he belonged to his family,
and that from seventy onwards he was merged in his tribe.
Disraeli was now in his seventy-first year. The Eastern in-
stinct glowed strongly within him — how strongly only the
Memoirs will teU ; but, looking back now, it is not difficult
to see that signs were showing above the surface in November
1875 plainly indicating the whitherwards of coming events.

Shortly after our arrival in England I attended a levee
held in the old Horse Guards by the Duke of Cambridge. His
Royal Highness was kind and gracious, said some nice things
about bygone service, and a week or two later I was agree-
ably surprised to receive a letter from his military secretary
asking if I would accept the position of deputy assistant
quartermaster-general at headquarters. I replied in the
affirmative ; and before I could be gazetted to the appoint-
ment another letter came from another high official asking if
I felt disposed to proceed first on a mission to trans-Caspian
Persia for the purpose of reporting upon the Russian move-
ments along the Attrek Valley in the direction of Merv, after-
wards taking up the post at headquarters. All my natural
inclinations lay in the direction of Persia as against Pall Mail,
and I replied accepting the mission to Merv ; but the proposal
fell through owmg to the refusal of the Foreign Office to
sanction the necessary expenditure, and shortly before the
year closed I joined the staff at the War Office.

It was a marked change of scene, from the extremity of the
circumference where my service had hitherto led me, to the
exact centre of the system.

And a highly centred system it was at that time, far more
than it is at present. A corporal and a file of men could not
move from Glasgow to Edinburgh except with the sanction
and under the sign-manual of the headquarters in London.
' I am glad to hear that you are going to the War Office,' wrote

THE WAR OFFICE 187

a general of the widest experience to me. ' Yon will at least
see there the extraordinary system under which our army is
administered, and you will also be able to form a judgment upon
the stability of the human pillars which support the edifice of
administration/ The thing that soon became clear to me,
holding even a subordinate position in that great congeries
of confusion then known as the War Office, was the hopelessness
of any attempt to simplify or improve matters in any way.
A vast wheel was going round, and all men, big and little, were
pinned upon it, each one bound to eat a certain set ration of
paper every day of his hfe. It was not the subject so much
as the paper that mattered. In the months following my
appointment I saw a great deal of Major Redvers BuUer,
who held an appointment similar to mine in the adjutant-
general's office, then presided over by Sir Richard Airey.
My own office had for its head Sir Charles Ellice, and
later on Sir Daniel Lysons. Many other officers whose names
became known to army fame in subsequent years held positions
at this time on the headquarters sta£F — Colonel T. D. Baker,
Colonel Robert Hume, Colonel, afterwards Sir, Charles Wilson,
Sir Patrick MacDougall, Captain Herbert Stuart, Sir John
Ardagh, and others. I would speak in particular of Colonel
Robert Hume, R.E. He was an exceptionally brilliant officer,
mixing wit and work in a rare combination. Like most of
the young and ambitious soldiers of the time, his economic
resources were not large, and he had a hard struggle, as the
real head of the Intelligence Department, to work his official
position and maintain a large family.

When the long-expected war between Russia and Turkey
began, the work that fell to his lot in briefing or coaching the
ministers responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs was
very great. He died of a slow fever about the time of the
occupation of Cyprus. He had distinguished himself during
the Ashanti War as the engineer-m-chief of the expedition,
and no doubt his constitution had suffered on the Coast. But
I knew something of his family affairs at the time, and I believe
that a life of the largest value to the State was lost, not because
of the labour it was doing in the public service, but because
of financial anxieties and worries at home.

At the moment when Colonel Hume was finding brains

188 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

and knowledge, geographical and other, for ministers and
statesmen whose names figured large in the European con-
gresses that preceded and followed the Russo-Turkish War,
he frequentlj^ sat late into the night at home workmg a sewing-
machine to keep his children in clothes ! What a lot of splendid
human steel I have seen cast on the scrap-heap in my time,
in the fulness of its strength and usefulness, through the selfish
stupidity of a system which never seemed to know the worth
of any human material it had to deal with !

The mass of old and confused buildings in Pall Mall in which
the administration of the army was then carried on was quite
typical of the confused work itself. Six or seven houses had
been selected, and thrown into intercommunication by means
of three-step doorways and devious stairways. All grades of
London houses had thus been brought together — from the
fine rooms of a ducal residence, where one saw walls and
ceilings with medaUions by Angelica Kauffmann and Italian
mantelpieces of the finest sculpture, to the mean-looking
lobbies and by-rooms of what had been once a silk-mercer's
establishment. The old sailor proverb about the island
of St. Helena — ^that you had the choice of breaking your
heart going up, or your neck coming down — had in a small
way its parallel in the Pall Mall makeshift building with its
many stairs ; and it was typical also of the misfortunes
attending upon the house that is divided against itself that
for fully forty j^^ears the department of State which most
vitally affected the existence of the Empire was attempted
to be carried on in a hole-and-corner collection of buildings,
most of the rooms of which were as unhealthy to the
administrators as they were unsuitable for the administra-
tion.

The division existing between the civil and military sides
in the War Office was as lasting a source of trouble to the
men who went into the houses as it was an active agent in pro-
ducing faults in the work that came out from it. Men spent
the greater part of their time in official hours in writing
' minutes ' from one duigy room to another across these dusty
passages and dark corridors. The clerk who could write the
sharpest minute in the most illegible handwriting was a valuable
reinforcement to his particular side, and he had never to be at

THE SYSTEM 189

a loss in finding opportunity for discharging his ' minute ' guns
into the ranks of some opponent. Plenty of fighting could be
had all round. The strangest part of it was that nobody ever
seemed to think why it was wrong, or to question the foundation
upon which the system rested — a foundation which was entirely
wrong m prmciple, and was therefore as certain to work out
as wrong in practice as though it had been a piece of architecture
set on false foundations and built upon faulty measurements.
In my time I knew m that old building half a score of Secretaries
of State. It was almost pathetic to see each of these men
in turn begin in hope and end in failure. Those among them
who made the fewest mistakes were those who tried the fewest
changes : bad as the old machine was, it went better with oil
and leisure than it did with grit and energy. It was like a man
whose constitution is thoroughly unsound, but who, neverthe-
less, can sometimes reach old age, if he does not play pranks,
or imagme himself either a young man or a strong man.

To understand the truth about our military administration
you must go a long way back m history — in fact, to Oliver
Cromwell. One fact alone in the history of the last seventy
years should give pause to all military reformers. It is this,
that at the end of every war waged by us in that period we
have come to a unanimous agreement that we were totally
unprepared for the war when we entered upon it ; and yet if
you go back to the beginning of each of these wars you will
also find that when we began them we were perfectly certain
we were ready, down to the traditional last button.

London in the middle 'seventies was a gay place of residence.
Much of the gold which the Franco-German War had poured
into it four years earlier v/as still there ; men and women,
horses and dogs, even the sparrows, looked fat, sleek, and jolly ;
only the poor were stiU thin. I look back to a host of friends,
kind, hospitable souls, chief among them on the army side being
Sir Garnet Wolseley, Redvers Buller, Evelyn Wood, R. Owen
Jones, Robert Hume, Henry Brackenbury, T. D. Baker, Lord
Gifford, John Ardagh, Cecil Russell, Baker Russell.

Everybody was eagerly watching the war-cloud in the Near
East, speculating where the cloud would burst ; little un-
noticed parties of selected officers were going out to look at
the scenerj^ of islands in the Levant, or seek for snipe along the

190 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Suez Canal, or ride through Asia Minor for the sport of the
thing. Everybody knew that something was coming. The
names of places well known in old war days — Gallipoli,
Sebastopol, Constantmople, Varna, the Dardanelles — came
again into constant conversation. More distant names also
entered into the imaginary map of the theatre of coming war
which we were so frequently constructing — -Kizil, Arvat,
Cabul, Candahar, the Oxus, Merv.

It is all thirty years ago, and two-thirds of the map-makers
are dead. The world has known many wars since then, and,
as usual, it was the utterly unexpected thing that happened
in the end. Wherever you went in London in the later 'seven-
ties, you saw numbers of little yellow-faced men, with dark,
shifty eyes, and a peculiar expression of half pain and half
pleasure upon their Mongolian features. No one took them at
all seriously as a possible factor in war or statesmanship. It
was true that they wore hats and trousers, but did not thej^ also
eat rice ? If any one at those pleasant club dinners had even
hinted at the possibility of these little yellow men meetmg and
beating the armies and navies of the great white Czar, he would
have been treated as an undiluted lunatic. These little men
were then busy learning in London the lesson of how Asia was
to whip Europe. Nothing so fraught with momentous results
to the world had happened for thirteen hundred years.

There was one little club dinner at this time which was by
far the most interesting I had ever sat clown to, and which left
on lay memory recollections not to be effaced in life. In the
winter of 1876 Major Robert Owen Jones asked me to meet an
old friend and brother officer of his. Colonel Charles Gordon,
at the time a passing visitor in London from the Egyptian
Soudan. Of course, the name of Chinese Gordon was familiar
to every soldier in the service, but, as usual, men accepted the
sobriquet without troubling themselves much about the deeds
that had won it ; indeed, some years later, I met an officer
who believed that ' Chinese Gordon ' was a Chinaman born and
bred.

The day of the dinner came ; there were only mine host,
Gordon, and myself. We met in the hall of the club, and I
was introduced to a man of middle age, rather under middle
height, of figure lithe, active, and well-knit, and with a face

A CLUB DINNER WITH GORDON 191

which still lives in my memory, not because it had any marked
peculiarity in its profile or full-face, but because of something
indefinable in the expression of the eyes. On the ocean one
is able at a glance to discern the difference between the
surface that has the depth of the Atlantic under it, and that
other surface which has the mud of the English Channel only
a few fathoms below it. A depth like that of ocean was
within Gordon's eyes. I never saw thought expressed so
clearly in any other man's. Above these windows of his soul
rose a fine broad brow, over which a mass of curly brown hair
was now beginning to show streaks of grey.

We sat down to dinner ; there was the little restraint natural
to men meeting for the first time, but that soon wore off, and
before the dinner was half over conversation was in full flow.
It was the best and cheeriest talk I ever listened to. Gordon's
voice was as clear and vibrant as the note of an old Burmese
bell, which has a great deal of gold in its metal. We adjourned
to the smoking-room, and there the stream of thought and
anecdote flowed on even better than before. In turn came
the Nile, the desert, the Khedive Ismail (from whom Gordon
had that day received a letter begging him to return to Egypt),
the fever of the lake regions, and how there was a new prophy-
lactic for it called Werburgh's tincture, the efficacy of which
was such that ' it would make a sack of sawdust sweat.' Then
he would change to the Lower Danube and its races ; the
Russian, the Bulgarian, the old Turk, Sebastopol. He spoke
in low but very distinct tones, and his voice, varying with its
subject, carried to the ear a sense of pleasure in the sound
similar to that which the sight of his features, lit with the light
of a very ardent soul, gave to the listener's eye. I never heard
human voice nor looked into any man's eye and found similar
tone and glance there, nor did I ever meet a man who had
equal facility for putting into words the thoughts tliat were
in his brain. You had never to ask an explanation ; the thing,
whatever it might be, was at once said and done. That night
was the only one in my club life in which I saw the man with
the bull's-eye lantern come to say the hour of closing had
come and gone. We were alone in the big smoking-room,
but I had not been aware of it. I met two men m my
life who possessed this charm of conversation, Sir Garnet

192 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Wolseley and Charles Gordon, but in Gordon the gift was
the greater,

A few months after this time the war-cloud broke along
the Lower Danube and in Asia Minor, and the spring and
summer of 1877 — ^the year that saw my marriage — were full
of rumours and preparations. At first it seemed that the
Russian march upon Constantinople would meet with feeble
opposition ; then came Plevna, the fierce fighting in the
Balkans, the taking of Adrianople, and the forward march of
the Russians upon the Bosphorus. The excitement reached
its highest pomt in London, but it was of a very frothy nature,
the music-hall god ' Jmgo ' playing a very conspicuous part
in it.

AU these wars and rumours of wars kept the staff in Pall
MaU chained to their desks, but as the great war seemed to
draw nearer to us, or we to it, the lesser war of which I have
already spoken between the rival sides in the War Office grew
less. The reserves were called out, and, despite of aU the
vaticinations and prophecies of failure and desertion, the
reservists turned up almost to a man.

Notwithstanding the journalists and the Jingoes, an impres-
sion began early to pervade the War Office that there would
be no war. The letters of that time which have since seen the
light show that this idea was also prevalent in India. Lord
Lytton gauged the position very accurately when he wrote to
a friend, upon hearing that a mob had broken Mr. Gladstone's
windows, ' I don't think the great heart of the English people
is likely to do more than break wmdows just at present.' Had
he known, however, as I came to know later, the personalities
and the means employed to smash these few panes of glass in
Harley Street, he would not have confused the breakers even
with a London mob, still less with the mass of the English
people.

By a strange coincidence, I happened to meet Mr. Gladstone
in the Opera Arcade on the day his windows were broken by
a few blackguards who had been specially hired for the business.
The dark, piercing eyes had an unusual flash in them. A shower
of rain was falling at the time, and the great leader had stopped
a moment in the shelter of the arcade. He had no umbrella.
I had one, and as I was at the door of my club, I offered it to

THE ARIMY CONTRACTOR 193

him. The expression of his face softened instantly, and he
thanked me in most courteous terms, but said the shower was
a passing one and that he did not need any protection from it.

The pretence of a war was kept up until the Congress met
in Berlin in the middle of 1878, and then the bubble burst.
The whole business had been quietly arranged weeks earlier
between the high contracting parties.

Amidst the knowledge of facts gathered in these years at
the War Office few impressed me more strongly than the power
possessed by the civil side of stultifying any attempt which
military officers might make to better the position, or improve
the efficiency, of the men in the ranks. An officer in the GOth
Rifles, whom I had known in Canada, had invented a very
complete and highly sensible set of military equipment, belts,
knapsack, and other accoutrements, which was very much
lighter and easier to put on, take off, or carry than the exist-
ing equipment.

This officer had spent his little all in bringing the new
patterns to perfection. Committees and Boards had reported
most favourably upon them. Soldiers upon whom they were
tried, on guard and on the march, had declared them to be
lighter, easier to manipulate and to wear than the old heavy,
hard things our infantry soldiers had so long been condemned
to carry. Nevertheless, no progress could be made in getting
this new equipment taken into general use, and time after time
the unfortunate designer and patentee used to appear at the
War Office, only to meet with the same negative opposition.
On one occasion his feelings of disappointment so overcame
him that he quite broke down. I then found where lay the
source of this dead-weight opposition. It was in the man who
held the contract for the old man-killing stuff. I use the term
' man-kiUing ' with reason. Many a time, when going the round
of some mUitary hospital, as I have already related, I have
asked an old soldier what he was suffering from. ' Them pains,
sir,' would be the answer ; and ' them pains ' were ascribed,
nine times out of ten, to the wearing for twenty-four consecu-
tive hours of ' them belts.'

In the knowledge that I was thus able to gain of the power
possessed by the army contractor began a lifelong effort to
expose the evils of the contract system as it was practised and

194 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

sustained by our army administrators ; but it was only towards
the close of a long military career that I was able to deal it
one good crushing blow, and though my own knuckles suffered,
through the action of a few men in high positions who suddenly
stood up on the side of the contractors, I never grudged the
temporary annoyance their interference caused me.

In the sudden mania for acquisition which Lord Beaconsfield
inaugurated in 1875-76, certain measures were begun m. South
Africa and in India which soon produced their various fruits
of friction and strife. In September 1876 it was decided that
the Transvaal was to be annexed. I don't think the fuU story
of that event is known to many people now living, and it is
sometimes of mterest and always useful that events from
which very great issues came should be traced to their fountain-
heads.

I had returned from a flying visit to America in September
1876 to find my old friend and companion, Mr. Theophilus
Shepstone, in London. He had been summoned home from
Natal for the purpose of conferring with Lord Carnarvon, for
whom the recent failure to bring about the confederation of
the South African States had produced new conceptions of
policy and new advisers of procedure. When I met Mr.
Shepstone he entertamed no thought of a speedy return to
South Africa, and I looked forward to the opportunity of
meeting him frequently in London during the autumn, and
having many more of those conversations and discussions
upon South African questions the interest of which I have
already alluded to in this chapter. He had arranged to dine
with me on a certain evening, but on the day of the evening
on which we were to meet I received a telegram from him
teUmg me that it had been suddenly decided he was to return
immediately to Natal, and that, as he was sailing next day,
our dinner could not come off. A day or two later a battalion
of infantr}'', then in Ireland, was ordered to prepare for early
embarkation for the Cape of Good Hope. Knowing what I
knew of the drift of things generally at this time, I put both
these sudden orders together without any difficultj^ The
next question that arose was as to the port to which the
transport taking out the infantry battalion should proceed
in South Africa. There were four ports possible — Cape Town,

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS 195

Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban. No decision would
be given on this point. Meantime the troops were on board,
and the ship was ready to sail. I went to the Colonial Office
to point out the necessity of a speedy decision, in order to save
demurrage, etc. Still no decision could be arrived at. I then
suggested that the transport should sail, and call for orders
at St. Vincent, and the thing that struck me as strangest in
the matter was that the officials with whom I was dealing
were at that time unaware that there was a cable to St. Vincent
by means of which it would be possible to leave the matter
of destination still an open one for nine or ten more days.

My proposal was finally sanctioned, and the transport sailed
about a fortnight or three weeks after the departure of Mr.
Shepstone for Natal.

A curious thing now happened. Both the mail steamer
carrying 'Mr. Shepstone and the transport steamer carrying
the reinforcements were wrecked on the South African coast,
forty or filty miles from Cape Town. Thus the annexation of
the Transvaal, decided upon early in September 1876, was
delayed by untoward events some months. Mr. Shepstone
was finally able to proceed to the Transvaal in December 1876.

Sir Bartle Frere went out as High Commissioner in March
1877, and the annexation of the Transvaal was a declared and
accomplished fact on the 12th April in the same year.

These httle movements, unknown and unnoticed at the
moment of their occurrence, were in reahty the spring-heads
of the stream of events destined to plunge South Africa into a
state of intermittent war for twenty-six years, and to cost
Great Britain a sum of not less than three hundred millions
of money ; and to-day, after all the blood spUt and the treasure
spent, we are pretty much ' as we were ' in South Africa.

The new pohcy soon began to bear fruit. KafFraria had
been annexed by stroke of pen, and the Kaffirs responded by
stroke of assegai. Troops were sent from England ; the
recalcitrant natives were soon hunted out of their patches of
bush and forest near King William's Town, and the troops were
then sent northwards to Natal for purposes the scope of which
the Government at home knew very little about. It soon
transpired that it was the intention of Sir Bartle Frere to
break the power of the Zulus beyond the northern boundary

196 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of Natal. The time seemed to him to be opportmie. Natal,
which up to this period had only seven companies of mfantry
to its garrison, had now seven battalions within its Hmits.
The Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, a man of exceptional sense
and foresight, did not want war, but his views were set aside.
A ' Bill of Indictment,' as it was called, was prepared against
the Zulu king, Cetewayo. The usual toll of cattle was de-
manded from him, and, before time was allowed for the collec-
tion of the animals, four separate columns of invasion entered
Zululand. From the right column to the left there was a
distance of about two hundred miles. It was to be the usual
picnic expedition. ' There wiU be no fighting," people said in
Natal. ' The Zulus are too good-natured. It wiU only be a
walk over.'

It was in the month of November 1878 that a staff officer
of high position at the Cape came to my office in Pall Mall,
and in a few words sketched the situation then existing in
South Africa. ' There was absolute peace in Zululand,' he
said. ' The difficulty was to poke Cetewayo up to the fighting
point.' When I heard of the movement in four separate and
far-apart columns, I said to my friend : ' It may fare roughly
for one of the pokers ; we are giving Cetewayo the tongs.'

In the last days of the year I left England to spend a few
weeks with Sir Garnet Wolseley in Cyprus. We had occupied
the island five months earlier : the newspapers were still full
of the recent acquisition, the visit promised many points of
interest, and it gave more than the promise. During three
or four weeks I traversed the island in every direction, from
Nicosia to Kyrenia on the north coast to the top of snow-clad
Troados in the west, and to Famagusta in the extreme east.
I had been a stranger to the East since leaving Burmah and
India fifteen years earher. All the young life of America
and the black life of Africa had since been my companions,
but here in Cyprus it was the East again, the East with the
Turk added on : the ragged squalor, the breast of the earth
dried up and desolate, the old glory of Greek, Roman, Norman,
and Venetian civilisation lymg in dust and ashes under a thing
that was itself a dying force in the world.

On 23rd January I set out with Sir Garnet Wolseley and
three of his staff from Nicosia to Mount Olympus, to find a site

TO THE ZULU WAR 197

for a summer camping-ground in the pine woods on the south
shoulder of the mountain, five thousand feet above sea-level.
Day had just broken. As we rode along the track leading
to Peristerona, the conversation ran entirely upon the war
which was then opening in Afghanistan. What bad fortune
it was that the chief and so many of his staff officers should be
hidden away in this dead island of the Levant, when so much
of stirring moment in the outer military world was about to
open. ' I have put my hand to the Cypriote plough and must
hold it until the furrow is finished,' was the chief's summing
up. But, at the moment when we were cantermg along the
track that early morning, the remnants of Lord Chelmsford's
main column of invasion were moving out of the wrecked
camps at Isandula in Zululand, and the commotion which
was to follow this disaster was destined to move us all to
South Africa a few months later. For mj^self I was to go there
almost at once. I returned to England via Trieste, where
the news of the massacre at Isandula reached me. I tele-
graphed the quartermaster-general offering my services for
South Africa, and two days later, loth February, was in
London. Two regiments of cavalrj', several batteries of
artiUery, and eight battalions of infantry were immediately
put in orders for Natal, and on the 28th February I sailed
from Southampton in the ss. Egypt, bound for the same
destination.

CHAPTER XIII

Assistant Adjutant-General in Natal. Death of the Prince Imperial.
Advance into Zululand, Ulundi. Transports for England. Imprison-
ment of Cetewayo. St. Helena again.

I WAS again in Natal. Three and a half years had passed
since I had left the colony in profound peace : it was now
seething in strife. Of the four original columns of invasion,
the principal one had been cut in pieces at Isandula ; the
action of the remainder had been paralysed. That next the
coast had entrenched itself at Etchowe ; all its transport had
been taken by the Zulus. The northern column, under Colonel
Wood and Major Redvers BuUer, had been alone able to move
out of its fortified position at Kambula ; but the mounted
portion of the force had just suffered very severely at a place
named Zlobane in Northern Zululand, and, although the
columns had been able to defeat the attack of a Zulu ' impi '
on the day following the disaster at Zlobane, it was no longer
a mobile entity. News of these events reached us at Cape
Town, and when we got to Durban Lord Chelmsford had just
succeeded in effecting the relief of the garrison at Etchowe
which had been brought back within Natal. So that, of the
original plan of campaign, there only remamed Colonel Wood's
column upon the soil of Zululand.

The state of confusion existing within Natal could scarcely
be exaggerated. To the extreme of over-confidence which
had, indeed, been the primary factor in the disaster of Isandula,
had succeeded the dread of a Zulu invasion. You will usually
find that the term ' picnic ' at the rising of the curtain upon
one of these little wars is readily changed to ' panic ' before the
conclusion of the first act. The reinforcements now pouring
into Natal reassured public opinion, which had grown over-
excited at the report of a native Natal woman living in Zulu-
land, who had come down to the Musinga Drift to tell her
father what the Zulu soldiers were saying to Cetewayo : ' The

198

WITH SIR HENRY CLIFFORD, V.C. 199

English are now afraid to meet us in the open ; they are lying
behind stone walls. Let us raid into Natal/ No doubt it
would have been possible for detached parties of Zulus to
carry into effect this idea, had their king been inclined to
accede to the wishes of his soldiers ; but he would not sanction
it. All through this time he never abandoned his old belief
that he was the friend of the English, and their ally against
the Dutch ; and he clung to the promises made him by the
Government of Natal through Mr. Shepstone at the time of
his coronation, all of which were now forgotten. ' Ah, Shep-
stone ! ' he is said to have frequently exclaimed at this time,
' why have you grown tired of carrying me on your back ? '

The staff billet to which I was appointed was that of assistant
adjutant-general under the general commanding the base and
lines of communication — Major-General Sir Henry Clifford, V.C.
Of him I shall say at once that among all the generals I
have been brought into contact with, none possessed a per-
Bonality more lovable, none had a higher courage, a larger
sense of public duty, or a greater aptitude for untiring toil.
The endless labours of his office during the ten months in
Natal that were now beginning broke down the health and
sapped the great physical strength of an exceptionally strong
man ; and he returned from South Africa, a year later, only
to die.

For some weeks after landing, he and I worked together in
a stifling little office in Durban, the corrugated iron roof of
which in the semi-tropical climate of the coast made the
temperature almost insupportable in the afternoons. After
a while. General Clifford moved to Maritzburg, and I was alone
in the Durban office. It was a strange life at first. I lived,
worked, ate, and slept in that office. For weeks there was no
respite from work. Troops were pouring in and moving on
up country ; demands for every article in the long catalogue
of modern war equipment for transport — remounts, medical
stores, camp equipment, clothing, ammunition, and fifty other
things — were incessant.

War brings all the fantastic idiosyncrasies of human nature
to the surface. Men will rob and pillage and rape and burn
in war who would have lived very passable and decent lives
in peace. Many of them think that it is part of the business ;

200 SIR WILLIMI BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

and, of course, the meaner and more sordid the war is, the
more that part of the programme becomes possible.

I have seen, even at a peaceful railway station in England,
a plethoric captain of Volunteers, proceeding to his summer
camp in uniform, begin to leer and ogle at the passing female
sex generally, who, had he been in his usual dress and at his
daily business vocations, would have been the picture of
decorous provincial family respectability.

Our work at the base of operations was largely added to
by the shipwreck at Cape Agulhas of a transport carrying a
vast amount of army stores — saddles, boots, harness, and other
things. These had to be replaced, as far as they possibly could,
by local purchase ; and the merchants of Durban and Maritz-
burg soon amassed fortunes by selling their indifferent wares
at fancy prices. Part of my work was to sanction those
purchases : they covered everything from anchors to needles.
Of course we were robbed right and left, despite our work
of day and night. Sometimes I caught the thief ; but oftener
he escaped scot-free. Nature blessed me with a good memory,
and I could recollect fairly weU the description, at least, of
the articles the purchase of which I had previously sanctioned :
so, when the passing of the bills came, I was able, generally
speaking, to remember whether I had approved the purchase
in the first instance, or not.

One night I was going through these monotonous files, when
my eye fell upon an entry — ' One water-cart, £25.' I was
morally certain that I had not given sanction for the buying
of this article. The official was ordered to produce it. It
was not to be found in any of our numerous storehouses ; and
at last, after searching inquiries, it was discovered that no
such article had been bought ; that the nearest approach to
it had been a water-can, price 5s., and that an ingenious under-
strapper in the Ordnance Office had changed the words * water-
can ' into ' water-cart,' and made the 5s. in the figure column
into £25. This, however, was the merest trifle in the account
of our losses. We had sent men out to buy horses in every
direction. One unfortunate man was purchasing animals in
the Orange Free State : he had forded a ' drift ' easily in the
mornmg, made many purchases in the day, and came to the
drift again in the evening. Rain was falling ; the water was

AN HISTORIC TRAGEDY 201

running breast deep ; his horse missed his footing ; rider and
horse were carried into deep water, and the man was drowned.
When his body was recovered, it was found to have on it
a leather belt full of gold pieces, more than three hundred in
number. These represented exactly ten per cent, on the pur-
chases of horseflesh made that day. It was their weight that
had caused him to sink like a stone.

Shortly after landing, I visited Maritzburg on business.
The troops were now moving up country. Lord Chelmsford
was also going forward. I met, in the Httle Government
House in Maritzburg so well known to me three years earUer,
the Prince Imperial, at this time a visitor with the Governor,
Sir Henry Bulwer. We had a long conversation : he had
many questions to ask about the Zulus, the up country for
which he was about to start, the climate, horses, arms, equip-
ment, everything. ' Although he was an artillery officer," he
said, ' he preferred to be as he was now, attached to the staff.
He might thus be able to get in closer touch of the Zulu enemy
than if he remained with a battery of artUlery.' Within one
month of the day upon which we thus spoke, this splendid young
soldier — handsome, active, brave to a fault, the very soul of
chivalrous honour, and yet withal of a singular grace and
gentleness — fell fighting, deserted and left alone by his escort,
one against twenty of this same Zulu enemy. The manner
in which this news came to us in Durban was singular. I had
a single Zulu to look after my few wants in the office which
was now my home. Every morning he entered the room, set
the bath on the floor, and went out as silently as he had come
in ; but on the morning of 3rd June he spoke a few words :
' A big " inkoos " had been kiUed.' Later that day or the
next came the details of that wretched tragedy in which so
many things besides Hfe had been lost.

Ten days later, the body of the Prince Imperial was brought
to Durban to be embarked on board a ship-of-war for England.
I think that the scene as the funeral cortege wound down the
Berea Hill towards Durban was the saddest but the most
impressive sight I had ever witnessed. It was the sunset hour ;
the eastern slope of the Berea was in shadow, but the town
beneath, the ships in the roadstead, and the deep blue Indian
Ocean beyond the white line of shore were aU in dazzhng hght.

202 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The regiments that had gone up countrj^ had left their bands
on the coast, and, one after the other, these took up the great
March of the Dead, until the twilight, moving eastward towards
the sea, seemed to be marching with us as we went. Night
had all but closed when we carried the coffin into the little
Catholic church at the base of the Berea HiU.

I could not get any money from the State or from the Colony,
but the people of Durban readily answered my appeal ; and,
though we had only twenty-four hours' notice, the church was
entirely hung in black cloth, violets were in profusion, and
many wax lights stood around the violet-covered bier upon
which the coffin lay. A few French nuns prayed by the dead,
relievmg each other at intervals through the night. As the
cortege, followed by the mourners, came slowly down the hill,
I heard from the groom who led the prince's charger the
particulars of the final scene — so far as it had been possible
to put them together at that time, for none save the Zulu
enemy had witnessed the last desperate struggle. But the
servant had seen his master's body, and that bore a tribute to
the dead man's courage more eloquent than had thousands
acclaimed the last struggle, not for life — that was hopeless
— but for honour. There were twenty-six assegai wounds, all
in front of the body ; the high riding-boots were found filled
with blood — so long and so firmly had the boy stood under the
rain of spears ; for though there were eighteen or twenty
Zulus facing that single figure, they dared not close with him
while he stood. The scene of the fight was a long, shallow,
sloping valley between hills ; a Zulu kraal was close at hand,
with patches of mealies around it ; then came a donga, with
grass growing high in places near it, and a spot of bare ground
by the edge of the donga (a dry watercourse) where the body
was found lying. Some of the Zulus carried guns : they had
stolen up through the mealie gardens and fired a volley at the
party, who were in the act of mounting their horses. The
captain of the escort galloped away, followed by his men in
a general stampede. The prince must have been still dis-
mounted when they ran, for his grey charger was found with
the holster cover torn off, as though the prince had caught it
in the act of mounting. The horse was restive at mounting
at all times ; and in the confusion of the shots and the galloping

THE CLOSING SCENE 203

away of the escort, it would have been more difficult than ever
to gain the saddle. But the groom was certain that if the
holster flap had been of good leather the prince would have
been able to mount, for he was of extraordinary activity in
all matters of the riding-school, and could vault from the
ground on to the back of any horse. The man's statement of
opinion found corroboration in an incident which occurred a
month before this time. It was thus described in one of the
Natal newspapers : —

' As time rolls on, the death of the Prince Imperial loses none of
its melancholy significance, and no doubt many an iacident of his
brief stay here will, sooner or later, come to light. One in particular
may be mentioned. When at the Royal Hotel, the prince asked Mr.
Doig to show him his horses. At the Crown stables there was a
wild young horse which had just thrown one of the stable hands.
The prince, without the aid of stirrups, vaulted into the saddle,
and although the horse bolted away and made every endeavour to
throw him, he brought him safely back to the stable, and dropped
from the saddle with a most extreme nonchalance. The horse has
since thrown another rider and broken his leg.'

The next morning we all assembled again at the little church,
where an old French priest said a requiem Mass. Then we
carried the coffin to the hearse, and the long procession passed
through the town to the wharf at the Point, two miles distant,
with the same solemn parade as on the previous evening. At
the wharf the coffin was handed over to the naval authorities,
and taken to the flagship in the outer roadstead.

In her strangely sad history South Africa has seen many
sad sights, but none so sad as this one.

I am writing to-day thirty years after that terrible tragedy
occurred. Three years ago I visited the scene where it
happened ; walked the ground by the fatal dongas, and stood
by the cross which Queen Victoria caused to be erected on the
spot where the body was found the day following the death
of the prince. Nothing has changed in the valley of the
Ityotyozi. A few Zulu kraals are there still ; the dry dongas
may have worn a little deeper ; but the long yellow grass is
waving there, and the mealie patches ; and the big dark slate-
coloured hills slope up on west and south, and the deep dry

204 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

channel of the Ityotyozi curves away toward the north-east,
the highest tributary of the White Umvolosi River.

No man wiU ever pierce the * Might have been ' of history.
Fourteen years after the death of the Prmce Imperial, I met
in the Mediterranean a distinguished admiral in the French
navj^ and we spoke of that day in Zululand. ' If the Prince
were alive to-day/ he said, ' he would without any doubt be
Emperor of the French, The French people would have
hailed him as their chief.'

I have spoken of the chaos which reigned in Natal following
up the disaster at Isandula. To that chaos, to that general
scramble of direction, to the absence of any real thmking or
governing power running through aU the army staff machinery
of the time must, in the first and leading sense, be attributed
the death of the Prince Imperial. As usual in our history,
the men who were first at fault got off, and the unhappy
subordinate actor m the tragedy was immolated. There was
no excuse for the conduct of the captain of the escort and
his miserable scratch following of six makeshift troopers ;
but neither was there any excuse for the general in command
of the army, nor the staff officers whose duty it was to see
that this young French prince, a volunteer to us in this war
and engaged in doing our duty for the moment, should not
be allowed to go out into an enemj^'s countrj'' without full
and proper escort, and under the eye and command of an old
and experienced mounted officer. ^Vhat were these people
thinking of when they allowed that wretched party to go nine
or ten miles from camp straight into a land full of armed and
lurking enemies ? Four months before this time, an entire
British regiment and four or five hundred other troops, artillery
and cavalry, had been assegaied to a man at a place within a
day's easy ridhig distance of, and twenty miles nearer to our
frontier than, this valley of the Prince Imperial's death.

It was afterwards said by way of excuse that the prince was
brave to rashness, and that it was his reckless daring which
led to his death. What an excuse ! making the fault of those
who were responsible for the escort and its leadership only
more glaringly apparent. It is all a horrible black night of
disaster, with a solitary star of one man's glorious courage
shining through it.

A SOLDIER'S PRAYER 205

When they came to look over the poor boy's papers, they
found among them a written prayer ; these sentences were
in it : —

' My God, I give Thee my heart ; but give me faith. To pray
is the longing of my soul. I pray not that Thou shouldst take
away the obstacles on my path ; but that Thou mayst permit me
to overcome them. I pray not that Thou shouldst disarm my
enemies ; but that Thou shouldst aid me to conquer myself. . . .
If Thou only givest on this earth a certain sum of joy, take, 0 God,
my share and bestow it on the most worthy. ... If thou seekest
vengeance upon man, strike me. Misfortune is converted into
happiuess by the sweet thought that those whom we love are happy ;
and happiness is poisoned by the bitter thought that, while I rejoice,
those whom I love a thousand times better than myself are suffering.
For me, 0 God, no more happiness : take it from my path. If I
forget those who are no more I shall be forgotten in my turn ; and
how sad is the thought which makes one say, " Time effaces all " !
. . . O my God, show me ever where my duty Hes, and give me
strength to accomphsh it. . . . Grant, 0 God, that my heart may
be penetrated with the conviction that those whom I love, and
who are dead, shall see all my actions ; that my hfe shall be worthy
of their -witness, and my innermost thoughts siiall never make them
blush.'

Reading these sentences, one seems to lift a corner of the
veil that hangs between man and the Face of the Inscrutable.
Happily for those who have to work in war, there is stiU time
left for thinking.

A few days after the close of this sad chapter, the telegrams
from England via St. Vincent announced that Sir Garnet
Wolseley was coming out to reheve Lord Chelmsford of his
command. ' The cloud of misfortune seems ever to overhang
this miserable and luckless war,' thus wrote Archibald Forbes,
from Camp Itelezi Hill on the night of Whitsunday. It was
true. But there was more than misfortune in all that had
happened : things were done that read to-day as beyond
possibiUty of credence. The advance into Zululand was made
in two columns — one entering by Landmarm's Drift over the
Bufifalo River ; the other by the coast -road from Durban over
the Tugela to Port Durnford. This latter force, consisting
of two brigades of British infantry and cavalry and artillery,

206 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

had now been creeping slowly forward, with many halts between
the creeps, for about six weeks. It was now halted at Port
Durnford. Of certain officers many stories were current, and
numerous were the epigrams and lampoons which the Natal
newspapers indulged m at the time.

A letter written by a staff officer of high place early in July
speaks of a general ' moving, at a time when transport is above
all things precious, with a waggon fitted as a movable hen-house,
with coops and places for hens to lay so that he may always
be sure of his fresh eggs for breakfast. He dresses or did dress
(I fancy Sir Garnet has altered matters) in the most absurd
costume, with a sombrero hat and a long pheasant's feather,
and an imitation puggaree tied in what he considers a pic-
turesque and artistic carelessness on one side. He telegraphed

to for six milch cows among other supplies ; but ,

while meeting all his other demands, telegraphed back, " Must
draw the line at milch cows." ' Describing the appearance of
the streets in Durban, the same writer says : ' The streets are
full of all sorts of military and naval types ; the wonderful
number of straps and dodges that some of them have about
them is a sight, and every one seems to try how many odds

and ends he can carry about him. Y is said to beat every

one ; a man describing him to me said, " He only wanted a
few candles stuck about him to make a Christmas tree \ " '
These descriptions are in no way exaggerated. They might,
indeed, be amphfied and yet be within the truth. What is
there in the air or soil of Africa which seems to unlevel the
heads of so many newcomers in that part of the world ? Truly,
a master-spirit was wanted here.

Sir Garnet Wolseley reached Durban on the 28th June.
He landed early ; rode round the camps, hospitals, and store-
houses ; had breakfast, and started by train for Botha's Hill
and Maritzburg, where he was sworn in. He was back in
Durban the next day ; went on board a man-of-war, and
sailed for Port Durnford — intending to land there, pick up
the Coast Column, and move with it at once towards the King's
Kraal at Ulundi. But now South Africa came into play.
The violence of the surf made landing impossible at Durnford ;
Sir Garnet and his staff were obliged to return to Durban. I
had horses and waggonettes ready for them, and they left for

ABSENCE OF THINKING FACULTY IN ARIVIY 207

Port Durnford by land. Through these various contretemps
six days had been lost. Meanwhile, on 4th July the action
at Ulundi was fought, and the Zulu War was practically over.

It was fuU time ; it had lasted eight months, and was costing
one million pounds each month. A war with the Zulus, if
properly planned and carried out, meant from its beginning
what it was found to mean at its end — just thirty minutes'
fighting. The arms of an enemy, and his methods of using
them, are the chief factors which should dictate to a general
the disposal of his forces, and his fighting tactics. The Zulus
were armed with assegais ; they did not fight at night ; they
charged home in dense masses in open daylight ; they had
neither artillery nor cavalry. Eight good infantry battahons,
two regiments of hght cavalry, three field batteries, and three
hundred native Basuto scouts would have been amply sufficient
to do in seven weeks what at least twice that number of men,
guns, and horses succeeded in accomplishing, after defeats and
disasters, m the same number of months.

As I look back over forty-seven years of service, the thing
that astonishes me most is the entire absence of the think-
ing faculty in nine out of ten of the higher-grade officers
with whom I was associated. AVhat obtained at Aldershot
was made the rule throughout the world — from Greenland's
icy mountains to India's coral strand. It was not Caesar,
most imaginative of tacticians, who was the teacher : it was
his so-called camp over the Long Valley, with the Basingstoke
Canal at the end of it, and the site for the luncheon bej^ond that
again, which set the lesson of the tactical apphcation of the
three arms, and often gave the key to victory. I knew of one
very successful leader at Aldershot who regulated the move-
ments of his brigade by the direction which the refreshment
carts took in the commencement of the fray. They were
supposed to be under a sort of h}^notic inspiration from the
mind of the garrison sergeant-major as to the point at which
victory would declare itself, and the battle would terminate at
1.30 P.M.

While the new commander-in-chief in Zululand had now to
proceed with the final phases of the capture of Cetewayo, and
the settlement of Zululand, we at the Base and on the Line of
Communications had to prepare and carry out the embarkation

208 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of more than half the army, and quite two-thirds of its late
generals and their staff.

Some of the battahons and batteries had been a long time
up country, and very large arrears of pay were due to them,
as well as to the very numerous irregular corps which had been
recruited for service after the disaster at Isandula. It would
be difficult to imagine anythmg more irregular than the majority
of the rank and file of these latter bodies : the Turkish title,
Bashibazouk, seems alone suited in its sound adequately to
describe them. Their regimental titles were also suggestive
in many instances of the general trend and direction of their
disciplme and methods — Sham-buckers' Horse, Raafs' Rangers,
the Buffalo Border Guards, etc., etc.

To pay off, disarm, and embark those worthies was a work
requiring some little tact and method on the part of the
officers who had to deal with them under their respective
heads. These various units of raffish swashbucklers now
came to the port of embarkation to be paid their reckonings
and to pay them again into innumerable pubhc-houses of
Durban. I devised many plans by which the evil might be
lessened. Sometimes I put a pay officer and his paysheet,
with a good guard of regulars, on board a transport in the
outer anchorage, and informed the men that they would onl}?-
be paid on board ship. Another plan was to encamp the
corps six or eight miles out of Durban, in the vicinity of a
railway station, by means of which they could be fed and
supplied from the port. The scenes which were daily taking
place were often of a very ludicrous description. A battalion
of infantry, to whom some five or six thousand pounds had
to be paid, would reach the wharf for embarkation, having been
made the recipients on the march through Durban of a public
luncheon and innumerable quantities of large water melons —
the latter a most innocuous fruit on any ordinary occasion,
but somewhat embarrassing when presented to a man after
a hearty meal and many libations en route. I had prepared,
however, for the dangers of the embarkation from the wharf
in the large flat boats, and a dozen steady men with boathooks
stood ready to gaff the men who feU into the water — a pre-
caution which bore fruit in more senses than one, for many
of the men deemed it a point of honour to hold on by their

LUNATICS AT LARGE 209

water melons even when they were in the sea. The acme
of confusion was, however, reached on the occasion when some
eighteen hundred ' details,' prisoners, ' insanes,' sick, and
absentees from previous embarkations had to be put upon a
troopship in the outer anchorage.

At the last moment a train had arrived from Maritzburg
with six ' insanes ' for shipment to England. The transport
was still m the roadstead, so a boat was sent out to her. The
corporal in charge had just time to run up the gangway with
his charge ; the anchor was already up. On reaching the
quarterdeck, crowded with eighteen hundred men, the six
' insanes ' saw their chance, and while the corporal was handing
his papers to the staff officer on board they adroitly dispersed
themselves among the miscellaneous crowd of men thronging
the decks. Identification was entirely impossible in that
mixed crowd : the corporal had to get back to his escort in
the boat as quickly as possible, and the big troopship moved
off to shake her motley collection of men into that subsidence
which only grows more complete as the sea grows more restless.
But the hour came when the staff officer asked the sergeant
of the guard, ' Where are the six insanes ? ' No man on board
could say where ; and soon the rumour passed from deck to
deck that there were six madmen at large among the troops.
Every man began to take a strange interest in his neighbour.
' And who is thy neighbour ? ' asks the catechism. ' Mankind
of every description ' is the answer, so far as I can recollect
it over the lapse of years. But surely that reverend and
estimable namesake of mine, when he penned that question and
answer, can never have contemplated a contingency^ such as
this crowded troopship, with twenty different corps repre-
sented in its human freight, and at least two unknown madmen
at large upon every deck ! And yet never could there have
been a time when men regarded their neighbour with more
lively interest. A council of the leading authorities on ship-
board was rapidly assembled, and a course of action decided
upon. Practically it came to this, that the whole mass of
military was placed under observation ; a select corps of
observers was organised, and the work began. Any man
who was sitting apart in the anticipatory stages, or after effects,
of sea-sickness found himself walked round and suspiciously

o

210 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

regarded ; at frequent intervals a man would be tapped on
the shoulder and told to come before the doctor. When the
vessel reached Cape Town there were twenty-six men under
observation, and it was afterwards found that not one of the
six ' insanes ' was among them. A curious thing now hap-
pened : after a while, some sergeant or corporal, more observant
than his comrades, remarked that there were certain men in
the crowd who were ready on all occasions to lend a hand
in running in the suspected ones, first to the doctor and after-
wards to the ' observation ' hold. The eagerness and alacrity
of these few men attracted first praise and then suspicion.
There was an expression of self-satisfaction on their features
which was peculiar to them alone among those whose duty
it was to discover the missing madmen. Then their off
moments were watched, with the result that when the ship
reached St. Helena the ' observation ' hold was cleared of its
former inmates and the six insanes were duly installed therein.
At last the weary work of sweeping up the wreckage of a
war which was unusually fertile in shipwrecks drew to an end.
A crowd of contractors flocked to the base to batten upon the
expected spoil when the time for selling surplus stores came.
Enormous accumulations of food, forage, and all the other
paraphernalia of war had to be got rid of. At first high prices
were obtained ; then the usual rings were formed. We had
some thousands of tons of food-stuffs to sell, and the dealers
saw their chance : they would only give first one shilling, and
then sixpence, for a heavy sack of Indian corn. I had two large
transports sailing with troops, the cargo decks of which were
empty. ' All right, gentlemen ; we will put these two thousand
odd tons of excellent food-stuffs on board these empty vessels
and send them to London.' Then the counter-attack began.
The dealers worked hard to prevent this move ; the depart-
ments were also hostile to my proposal. It had not been
done before ; it would comphcate departmental accounts ; it
was a new departure, etc., etc. ' But is it not common-sense ? '
I said. ' These innumerable sacks of food, for which we can
get sixpence here, will sell in London for ten or twenty times
that figure. We are already paying enormous prices for the
freightage of these ships ; it wiU cost us nothing to send all
this food to England.' This and a lot more I urged. At last

THE OLD STORY 211

sanction was given, and I saw the enormous stacks of supplies
vanish into the empty ships, the cargoes to fetch in London
even more than I had anticipated.

This war against the Zulus in 1879 was, in fact, a small
undress rehearsal for that other war which was to be fought
in South Africa twenty years later. But new men had in the
interval come upon the scene ; the older ones who still remained
above ground were set aside ; and every error made in 1879-
1880 — in strategy, tactics, foresight, administration, transport,
remounts, supplies, multiplied by the power of twenty or per-
haps thirty — was repeated in 1899 and 1900. Four million
pounds were thrown away in the war of 1879 ; at least one
hundred millions were flung to the winds in that of 1899 and
the two following years.

' It 's a way we have in our Army,
It 's a way we have in our Navy,
It 's a way we have in Pall Mall.'

How often in my small sphere I have laboured hard to save
fifty or a hundred thousand pounds, making thereby enemies
for myself in every direction among contractors, clerks, and
officials in general, only to find in the end that there was some
colossal noodle above me whose signature had the power of
flinging ten times my savings into the melting-pot of waste,
inefficiency, and ineptitude. 'I go to Paris to find my
enemies there,' said Marshal Vendome to Prince Eugene, as
they parted somewhere in the ' Cockpit ' during the War of the
Spanish Succession. * And I to Vienna, where mine await
me," replied the prince. It is a very old story ; it is certain
to grow older.

While Durban was the scene of the closing phases of the
Zulu campaign, robberies and burglaries became unusually
prevalent, as many of the Government stores had to be kept
in large marquees, into which ingress was easily obtained at
night. To check these robberies, a non-commissioned officer
of the Ordnance Department was put in the large marquee at
nightfall, with orders to fire at any interloper he might chance
to find there. Unfortunately for the plan, a drunken old
conductor, who had come down from the front, had gone
quietly into the marquee earlier in the afternoon for the purpose

212 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of sleeping off his potations among the piles of blankets within.
He was in a profound slumber when the watch was set, and he
remained m it for hours after ; but at length, towards midnight,
he awoke and began to stir himself. Bang ! went a revolver
some little distance from his resting-place ; then another shot,
and another. ' Holy Moses ! ' he shouted, ' are the Zulus on
us agam ? ' This was, I think, the very last of the scares in
the Zulu War. They had lasted without intermission from
January to July. The shadow of a cloud in the moonlight
moving over the side of a hill was sometimes enough to set
the rifles going in one of the laagers of the invading force, or
even to cause fire to be opened from the ramparts of one of
the forts on the line of communication. It was always the
advance of a Zulu ' Impi ' that was conjured up in somebody's
excited imagination. On one occasion, when many thousand
rounds of ammunition were fired off, the ' Impi ' came on
again and again, only to wither away before this jeu
d'enfer, which went on for many hours. When day dawned,
a single dead cow was discovered lying upon the field of
battle.

Early in January 1880 all the work was over, and I was able
to leave Durban for England. I had an interview with Sir
Bartle Frere at Cape Town. He seemed feeble and broken,
but his eye had still the old look in it. He spoke much about
the war, and I gathered from his conversation that matters had
not been going well between him and the Home Government.
* But,' he said, ' what other course could I have pursued ?
My military advisers told me that they had an ample force
for the invasion of Zululand ; that they were ready and pre-
pared in every respect. I was bound to believe their reports.
I had no means of knowing otherwise, nor had I any right to
thmk they did not know what they were speaking about.'
Of course, that was quite true ; but it was a dangerous time
to begin a war in South Africa when already there was war
beyond the Indian frontier in Afghanistan. At the time Sir
Bartle Frere was speaking thus, Sir Frederick Roberts had
been sent up near Kabul. That city was again in the hands
of the enemy, and the reUef of the English garrison had still
to be effected. That Afghanistan had been in Sir Bartle
Frere's mind at the time he was urging on the destruction of

A HOME-SICK MONARCH 213

the Zulu power is extremely probable, for I find in my notebook
this reference : —

'At the begioniag of the Zulu War (Lord Chelmsford's

chief adviser) is said to have remarked that they would march
through Zululand and then go on to Afghanistan.'

But more interesting even than my visit to Sir Bartle Frere
was a visit to Cetewayo in the castle at Cape Town. Previous
to my leaving Natal I had received a letter from Major
Ruscombe Poole (the officer who had charge of Cetewayo)
asking me, if possible, to bring some few bundles of green rushes
from Zululand when I was coming to Cape Town, in order that
one of the king's wives might make some mats, on which the
king could sleep. (He was unable to sleep in an English bed.)
I sent into Zululand, through Mr. Grant, a true friend of the
Zulus, and I soon had three large bundles of green rushes to
take with me to Cape Town. The first thing I did on arrival
was to get the bundles on to the top of a four-wheeled cab
and drive to the castle. Everything leavmg the docks was
subject to duty ; but as rushes were not in the taxable cata-
logue, the gatekeeper had to let me through free. I was soon
in the room wherein the unfortunate Cetewayo was kept. He
was delighted to get this little bit of his beloved Zululand in
his dreary four-waUed prison. It was the same as putting a
bit of green sod into the cage of a lark ; only the unfortunate
Zulu king wept when he saw these reminders of his old home,
and he said to the interpreter as he shook my hand, ' Say to
him that he has brought sleep to me : now I can rest at night.'

I reached England in the middle of February 1880. The
Government of Lord Beaconsfield was on its last legs : every
thing had gone wrong with it ; all the castles in the East had
crumbled, and in the South things were no better. Shore Ali,
it is true, was dead beyond the Oxus River ; Cetewayo was a
prisoner in the castle at Cape Town ; but other spectres were
rising above the frontiers of both countries. Sir Bartle Frere
had asked me to see Ministers when I got home, but they were
already in the throes of dissolution. Thmking that some one
in colonial authority might wish to see me, I put down a few
recent impressions upon the general trend of affairs in South
Africa which read fairly accurate to-day : —

214 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

• The state of Dutch feeling in the old Colony (Cape Colony) is
being affected by the condition of the affairs in the New (the
Transvaal). The one-sidedness of whites and natives is increasing ;
emigration is the only cure.'

On the voyage from the Cape the steamer touched at St.
Helena. It was close to sunset when the anchor was down.
' How long can you give me, captain ? ' I asked. ' Two hours,'
he replied. I was off to shore at once. I found a small black
boy with a small pony at the landing-place. Away we went
through the single-streeted town, and up the steep mountain
path — ^the black imp holding on by his pony's tail as the
ascent steepened. I knew the road, for I had been over it
sixteen years earlier. It was dusk when we gained the zigzags
on the track above the ' Briars ' ; then came the bit of level
curving track by the alarm post, and then the well-remembered
/side path to the left dipping down steeply to the head of
Rupert's Valley. There in the dusk was the silent tomb again ;
the dark cypress trees, the old Norfolk Island pines, the broken
wiUow, the iron railings, the big white flagstone in the centre
of the railed space — all the lonely encompassing lava hills
merging into the gathering gloom of night ; and only a yellow
streak of afterglow, still lying above the western rocks, to make
the profound depths of this vaUey seem more measureless.

I was back on board the Nubian ere the two hours had
expired. The time at the grave had been short ; but it did
not matter : twenty-six years later I was to be there again,
a dweller for days together on the ridge of Longwood above
the tomb.

CHAPTER XIV

War in South Africa. Majuba. Adjutant-General in the Western District. The
Egyptian question. Bombardment of Alexandria. Arabi. Service in
Egypt. On Sir Garnet Wolseley's Staff. El Magfar. Tel-el-Mahouta.
Kassassin. The night march. Tel-el-Kebir.

Lord Beaconsfield resigned office after the General Election
of March, and Mr. Gladstone came into power in April 1880.
In the new administration the Marquis of Ripon was appointed
Viceroy of India, Colonel Charles Gordon going with him as
private secretary. Lord Ripon had, quite unknown to me,
proposed my name for that position, but Mr. Gladstone had
not approved the selection. He considered that a Catholic
viceroy in India was sufficiently experimental without further
endangering the position by the appointment of another of the
same creed to a subordinate but still influential post. So,
in place of proceeding to our great Eastern dependency ' in a
position of considerable power and influence and fuU of very
interesting though very hard work,' as its last holder, Colonel
CoUey, had described it, I was sent as chief staff officer to
Devonport, having been previously promoted heutenant-
colonel in the army for services in Natal.

Mihtary life in England can never be * magnificent,' stiU

less, of course, is it likely to be ' war.' In India it can be both.

As private secretary to the viceroy I should have received

between three and four thousand pounds a year ; as assistant

adjutant-general of the Western District I received six hundred

pounds. Service in England, however, possesses the saving

grace of having a large measure of humour attached to it ;

nothing makes for humour more than make-believe. An

army, the officers of which are dressed for the benefit of the

London tailor, and the soldiers of which are administered largely

in the interests of the War Office clerk, must of necessity afford

situations replete with humour ; but the laughter they evoke

has to be paid for by somebody in the end.

216

216 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Before the year 1880 closed, war had broken out again in
South Africa and Afghanistan. Up to the middle of the year
the prospect, people said, was entirely peaceful. The leading
authority in Eastern affairs — Sir Henry Rawlinson — had
publicly declared that the outlook on the side of Candahar
was eminently tranquil. The Transvaal administrator — Sir
Owen Lanyon — repeatedly asserted that no apprehension
need be entertained in that country. Suddenly, as though
he had come in a balloon, Ayub Khan descended into the
valley of the Helmund. With equal rapidity the Boers
concentrated at Heidelberg, and declared the Transvaal a
Republic. In midsummer Burrowes was ' annihilated ' at
Maiwand. In December, Anstruther, movmg with the head-
quarters of the 94th Regiment from Heidelberg to Pretoria,
was destroyed at Brunker's Spruit. Then in rapid succession
came disasters at Laing's Nek, Igogo, and finally at Majuba,
where poor CoUey fell. Before the defeat of the late Govern-
ment he had been transferred from the private secretaryship
in India to the position of lieutenant-governor of Natal. In
the months following my return from Natal to England I
had seen a good deal of him in London, and I was present at
the banquet given to him by the Colonial Office in May on the
eve of his departure for Natal. How fuU of felicitations and
of hope were the speeches of everybody that evening ! Par-
ticularly optimistic was the speech of Lord Kimberley, the
Secretary of State. A new South Africa was about to arise
out of the mists and vapours of the past, they said, as indeed
we shall find them saying seventeen years later when another
' Proconsul ' was about to depart for the same destination.
AU make-believe again. When will our governors realise that,
of all the foundations possible for building empire upon, this
of make-believe is the very worst 1

I was in London when the news of Majuba arrived there.
On the evening of Sunday, 26th February, a telegram had
been received at the War Office from CoUey announcing the
occupation by him that morning of a commanding position
overlooking the Boer camp, and completely commanding the
ridge of Laing's Nek. The Boers were preparing to trek from
their camp. I had seen a copy of this message late on Sunday
evening. At breakfast next morning the fuU report of the

A LULL # 217

disaster, which had followed immediately upon the despatch
of this message, was in all the London papers. I went to the
War Office. None of the higher officials were there. Sir
Garnet Wolseley was then residing some twenty miles from
London. I knew that he would pass through Trafalgar
Square, and I waited there until he came. Then I walked to
the War Office with him. Colley was, I think, the dearest
friend he had in the army ; certainly he was the one in whom
he trusted the most thoroughly. He felt his loss deeply. It
was a very busy day in the Office ; reinforcements were under
orders immediately ; the Duke arrived early. There were
councils and consultations. Before the afternoon had come
everything was arranged. Sir Frederick Roberts was to go
out in command. Sir Garnet Wolseley must remain at the
War Office as quartermaster-general. The command of the line
of communications had been offered to Colonel T. D. Baker,
who was abroad at the moment. In the event of his re-
fusal. Sir F. Roberts asked if I would accept the position. Of
course I said ' Yes," but Baker took the post ; and, as is known
to everybody, the Peace of O'Neill's Farm was made before
the commander, his staff, or the reinforcements arrived in
South Africa.

For more than a year now the work in the Western District
was of the usual staff type common to home service. I have
spoken of the humorous contrasts by which it was sometimes
enlivened. An Easter Monday Volunteer Review at Ports-
mouth or Dover, or a Grand Field Day at Aldershot, not un-
frequently provided the incidents which caused these pleasant
interludes in what must have been otherwise a period of a
somewhat monotonous character.

The army in its higher ranks still swore, not perhaps as
lustily as it did of old in Flanders, but stiU a good deal more
than was good for it, or for those who had to listen to it.
There was once a general commanding at Aldershot whose
reply to a royal personage, on an occasion when the display
of forcible language was more than usually emphatic, struck
me as being exceptionally neat and appropriate. He had been
the recipient during the operations of a good deal of strong
language, and at the final ' pow-wow ' some allusion was made
to those fireworks of the tongue. ' I don't mind being called

218 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
a d fool/ he said, * if it pleases your Royal Highness

to call me so ; but I do mind being called a d fool before

your Royal Highness's other d fools/ and he swept his

hand towards the large and brilliant staff grouped behind the
commander-in-chief.

The troubles in South Africa and Afghanistan had scarcely
subsided ere things began to threaten in the valley of the Nile.
When a ' question/ as it is called, suddenly seems to approach
solution, or to demand some active treatment, the general
public (who up to this pomt have been kept entirely in the dark
in relation to it) are suddenly deluged with information about
it, but it is always information of a single type and pattern.
The Egyptian question, which began to assume light in 1881,
was a striking example of this rule. It had been slowly
maturing in the minds of certain politicians for several years.
As early as the winter of 1875-76, three military officers had
been sent to Egypt to report upon frontiers and possibilities.
The movement of Russian armies in Bulgaria and Asia Minor
two years later postponed action ; then came the deposition
of Ismail Pasha in 1879 ; the succession of Tewfik as Khedive ;
the budding of a National party in Egypt in 1880-81, and the
subsequent intrigues of Jews and Gentiles, Turks, Arabs,
Greeks, and Syrians ; of aU those extraordinary, astute human
units grouped under the name of Levantines, whose greeds,
lusts, and various financial activities have played such a promi-
nent part in shaping the flow of the history of the last forty
years.

In such watching of the world's forces as I have been
able to give through thirty of those years, I have been struck
by a general course of action which has pervaded most, if not
all, of those various movements. I would describe it thus.
The faddist appears first upon the scene. He is, generally
speaking, an honest and sincere man, quick to catch impressions,
eager to teU about them, of an overweening vanity, an un-
balanced ambition, and a facility for putting thought into
speech or writing far beyond his power of putting thought
into sense or action. This man is consumed by a wish to do
something. He would canalise the plain of Esdraelon, flood
the valley of the Jordan with the waters of the Mediterranean,
run a railway from the Euphrates to the Himalayas, repeople

THE FINANCIER IN WAR 219

Palestine with the children of Israel, supplant Christianity
by Buddhism, or Buddhism by Confucianism ; in a word, he
is a little of a genius and a good deal of a madman with a pur-
pose ; the mass of madmen have no purpose. The second
man to appear on the scene is the politician. He sees in this
idea something which he may be able to turn to his own pur-
pose— a new frontier, an outlet for trade ; a bigger vote at
the polls, a higher place in a cabinet. Then comes the great
financier, the man of many millions, the controller of vast
enterprises. He is reaUy the final factor in all this business.
When he takes sides, throws his weight into the scale, the
matter has passed into the region of practical politics, and the
old nebulous proposition has become the supremely important
question of the hour,

I know of no more iUuminating work published in recent
times than the Secret History of the English Occupation of
Egypt, by Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. In the pages of that
book the devious ways of diplomacy are made clear : the
genius, the politician, the young diplomatic attache, the Foreign
Office official move to and fro before our eyes ; and, at last,
we find the financier whipping the whole pack together and
letting loose the dogs of war.

It is not a very high or ennobling level from which to begin
the business of war. Compared with most of the old causes
of conflict which our fathers knew of, it is decidedly below
the average standard of dynastic jealousies, the rivalries of
States, the great social or political questions, such as underlay
the Civil War in America — even of the old loves of men and
women. These were aU subjects likely to caU from war the
thing which Shakespeare considered made ambition virtue.

But the soldier of to-day has to be content with what he
can get, and the gift war-horse which the Stock Exchange is
now able to bestow upon him must not be examined too
severely in the mouth.

On 11th July the forts at Alexandria were bombarded by the
British fleet, with the result that the forts were destroj-ed and
a large portion of the town was reduced to ruins. The huge
shells flew wide and high, some of them reaching Lake Mariout,
two miles inland. The Egyptian army retreated from the city
during the night following the bombardment, and the rear-

\

220 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

guard, with numerous bands of Arabs, fired and plundered
a large portion of the European and Levantine quarters of the
city.

The bombardment of Alexandria was a strategic and tactical
error of the first magnitude. It was known in London that
Alexandria could not be made a base for the conquest of the
Delta in August. Ismailia, on the Suez Canal, was always
recognised as the true base from which to deliver a rapid blow,
the object of which would be the capture of Cairo. The
possession of Alexandria was no more essential to the campaign
than the possession of Smyrna or the Piraeus would have been.
The longer the Egyptian army could have been induced to
remain at Alexandria, the better it would have been for us.

By forcing Arabi Pasha to withdraw his troops behind
Kafr-Dowr, we enabled him to mask Alexandria with a small
force and use the bulk of his troops m the desert at Tel-el-
Kebir. But space forbids that I should delay over the political
and strategic aspects of the war in Egypt, and I must pass to
the relation of my own personal experience in that short
campaign of 1882.

It is not impossible that the English Cabinet believed, when
they gave a half-reluctant consent to the bombardment of
Alexandria, that the destruction of the forts would be followed
bj'' the coUapse of the National movement, but, as has hap-
pened so often in our military history, the exact opposite of
the expected occurred. The determination of the Egyptians
to resist intervention in their internal affairs received fresh
strength and purpose from the spectacle of destruction wrought
by the British fleet in what was an entirely one-sided conflict,
and in the month following the bombardment it became
abundantly clear that if the National movement in Egypt
was to be overturned, an army of invasion must be sent into
the Delta.

This army was hastily got together in the latter part of
July, and it left the United Kingdom in the first half of August.
It had not undergone any prehminary organisation or pre-
paratory training in brigade or division ; the regimental
battalion had sufficed for all preparatory work, and the larger
units of military command, together with their generals, staffs,
and transport, were to be put together at the port or place of

THE DESERT CAIMPAIGN OPENS 221

disembarkation, after the expeditionary force had landed in
Egypt.

Of these generals and their staffs there was an extraordinarily
large number, a number out of all proportion to the strength
of the fighting men. There were, I thuik, some eighteen general
officers to twelve thousand bayonets. On taking the three
arms — infantry, cavalry, and artillery — together, there was a
general to every nine hundred men. At first sight this plethora
of the highest rank might seem of small account, but in reality
in war it was certain to prove a serious injur5^ Even in a
campaign of exceptional activity, the days of actual fighting
must bear smaU relation to the daj^s when there is no external
fighting. \Vhen there is no external fighting going on, internal
squabbles are apt to show themselves in camp or on the march.
Staffs are also belligerently disposed on these occasions. The
feathers of the domestic cock have for many years been used
to distinguish general and staff officers in the British army.
' Fine feathers make fine birds ' is an old saying ; and why should
not the plumage of the rooster, fluttering gaily in the cocked
hat of generals and staff officers, have some effect upon the
heads of the men who are called ' the brains of the army ' ?

I cannot delay over these domestic differences. In spite of
them the flow of action, under the inspiring touch of the
commander-in-chief, moved steadily forward from the base
at Ismaiha to the big grey, gravelly desert that lay in front of
the Egyptian lines of Tel-el-Kebir. There were minor actions
fought at El Magfar and Kassassin before this point had been
gained on the Sweet Water Canal, which ran from the Delta to
the Suez Canal at Lake Timsah, and of these minor actions,
that which took place at El Magfar on 24th August was the
most important. Three days earher the advanced portion of
the army began to land at Ismailia. All through the 22nd
and 23rd, horse, foot, and artillery were got on shore, and an
hour before daybreak on the 24th they pushed out into the
desert along the Sweet Water Canal, the waters of which had
been shrinking with ominous rapidity throughout the previous
day and night. The canal had, in fact, been dammed at
Magfar, ten miles forward in the direction of Cairo, and the
railway had been broken at the same place.

Sir Garnet Wolseley, dissatisfied with the reports he received

222 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

from his InteUigence Department, had determined to ride for-
ward with a few mounted troops, in order to see for himself
what was in his front. He took a few staff officers with him,
of whom I was one. Two Horse Artillery guns and a couple of
infantr}^ battalions were to follow the mounted men. I have
never forgotten that first morning out from Ismailia. Here,
as day broke, was the desert at last, the first sight I had ever
had of it. There is nothing like it in all the world — only sand,
the sand of the hour-glass, but made infinite by space, just
as a tumbler of sea water becomes infinite in the ocean. Sand,
drifted into motionless waves, heaped in ridges, scooped into
valleys, flattened, blown up into curious cones and long yellow
banks, the tops of which the winds have cut into fretted
patterns as it blew over them. And aU so silent, so withered,
and yet so fresh ; so soft, so beautiful, and yet so terrible.

The reconnaissance was to be a morning ride ten or twelve
miles forward, then back ; haversack food, and water from the
canal, the bank of which the left of the advancing column was
to keep in touch with. This canal, which made life possible
at Ismailia, Suez, and Port Said, made a sharp angle in its
course not far from Ismailia. The advancing troops followed
the two sides of this angle. I and another officer of the
staff struck straight from Ismailia into the desert, so as to
cut the angle on a shorter line than that on which the troops
moved. We were some three or four miles out when the sound
of cannon shot came booming over the desert from the direction
of our left front. The sun was now high above the horizon,
and the mirage was showing distorted water patches and
inverted bushes on many sides, but it was easy to steer towards
the cannon sound.

We had cleared the soft sand hillocks that surrounded
Ismailia, and the surface of the desert was now good going.
In twenty minutes we were in the little oasis of Abu Suez,
close to the railway and canal, where the hard desert was
mixed with patches of soft clay, on which mimosa scrub and
weeds grew. Here we found the commander-in-chief, a
squadron or two of Household Cavalry, and a company of
mounted infantry. A mile or two in rear a battalion of
infantry, one of Marine Artillery, and two Horse Artillery guns
were coming in clouds of dust along the railway track from

THE FIRST SHOT 223

NefisM. From where we stood, the desert for three thousand
yards rose gradually to Tel-el-Mahouta, where some lofty
mounds of sand and broken pottery still marked what is
supposed to have been the spot at which Pharaoh decreed that
the Israelites should make bricks without straw. These mounds
ended the forward view ; they were now black with figures,
while to the right and left of them a long, open line of Arab
camel-men and horsemen stretched along the skyline far into
the desert on either flank.

It was a very striking scene : the morning sun shone fuU in
their faces ; musket barrel and spear head flashed and glittered
along the desert ridge, while behind it the heads of many more
men and camels showed above the ridge ; and beyond them
again straight columns of black railway smoke were rising
into the still, clear air of the desert, showing that the resources
of civilisation had also been called into request by the Egyptian
enemy, and that his infantry were being hurried up from the
direction where lay Tel-el-Kebir to make head against our
further advance. These smoke columns really changed the
plan and purpose of the morning's work. The reconnaissance
became a fixed movement. The commander-in-chief was here,
and here he would stay. He had in the ground immediately
around him a favourable position for fighting an advance-guard
action which would give six or eight hours for bringing up
reinforcements. Away went an A.D.C. back to Ismailia to
hurry up the Guards Brigade and what odds and ends of the
three arms had disembarked. It was now nine o'clock, and
the sun was rapidly making his presence felt. Kot a breath
of wind stirred. Adye would take an hour and a half to reach
Ismailia, the troops another hour and a half to turn out. The
march through the sand in this burning sun would take three,
four, or five hours ; say seven hours must elapse before any-
thing of consequence could arrive.

The opening moves on the Egyptian side were well done.
A single gun placed at the Mahouta mounds opened the
ball with a shell so well aimed that after it had passed a
couple of feet exactly over the commander-in-chief's head,
as he stood with his staff on the top of a sand hillock, it
burst among the leaders of an artillery team just arrived
upon the field. Half an hour later five additional Egyptian

224 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

guns are in action on this ridge, their shells falling freely
among the sand hiUocks and ground folds where our nine
hundred foot soldiers are partially concealed from Egyptian
sight. The mounted men are out nearly a mile to the north
on the gravel ridges, keeping in check a flanking movement
which the Egyptian is making in that direction threatening
to overlap our right. Altogether, it makes a very interesting
little battle picture, to the scenic effect of which are added
other quahties of doubt, expectation, chance, and calculation,
the presence of which makes a battle by far the most
exciting and enthralling of all hfe's possibilities to its mortals.
WTiat has Arabi got behind the desert ridge ? That is the first
point. By ten o'clock he has shown six guns on the ridge ;
their practice is now so good that between ten and ten-fifteen
o'clock he has burst eight shells on and close around the hiUock
where our two Horse xArtillery guns are hard at work trying to
reply to these heavy odds. At twelve o'clock six more guns
are pushed over the ridge crest on our extreme right, enfilading
our first position and partly taking it in reverse. Behind those
new guns we can see at times men moving in formed bodies to
our right. About noon A.D.C. Adj^'e is back from Ismailia :
the Guards Brigade was to move at one o'clock. The Duke of
Cornwall's Regiment from Nefishi was a mile or two m rear ;
two Gatltngs and a party of sailors from the Orion wore at hand.
MeanwhUe, the heat had become simply outrageous, the sun
stood straight overhead, the j^eUow sand glowed like hot coals ;
not a breath of air stirred over these hot hillocks.

It was a curious situation. What if the Egyptian puts another
ten or twelve thousand men and a couple of brisk batteries on
our flank ? He has a railway to the foot of this ridge ; our rail-
way line has been broken in two or three places between us and
Ismaiha. It is all soft, hot sand for our men, who are just off
ship board. But the Egj^Dtian would not come on ; he kept
playing at long bowls with his twelve guns, and as the afternoon
wore on his chances grew less. The Duke of Cornwall's
Regiment arrived at one o'clock. At four came some squadrons
of dragoons, and at six the Guards and four Horse Artillery
guns reached the field. Better than any or all of these came
the sunset hour, the cool breeze from the north, and a few carts
with food of some sort. Speaking for myseK, the last reinforce-

OUR CHIEF 225

ment was the most welcome. I had started from Ismailia at
5 A.M., with a cup of coffee and a biscuit in the inner man, and
a tiny tin of ' Liebig ' on the outer one, for we were to have been
back in Ismailia for breakfast. These, -wdth a shce of water-
melon, had kept me going for thirteen hours under a sun and
in an atmosphere the strength and fervour of which it would not
be easy to describe. The thing that struck me most throughout
that long day and dwelt longest in mj' memory was the bearing
of our chief. The enemj-'s guns might multiply from over the
ridge in front and to our right flank, the shells drop faster
and closer upon our ten or fifteen hundred men, the sun might
glow stronger overhead — it didn't matter ; cool and cheery,
with a kind word for everj' one who approached him, an eye for
everything that happened on front or flank, or amongst us, he
personified more than any man I had ever seen the best type of
the soldier.

I remember a Httle incident that happened during that
afternoon when the Egyptians were pushing their left attack
with greater ardour, and their fixe had compelled our cavalry
on the right to retire from the position they had first occu-
pied directly on our right flank. Ordering his horse to be
brought up, the commander-in-chief mounted, and telling me
to accompany him, he rode in the direction of the cavalry, who
were then about a mile distant in the desert, where they were
drawing a good many of the enemy's shells upon them. When
we had got about half-way across the intervening space, and
the Egyptians, spotting us, had begun to favour us ^ith some
shots, the commander-in-chief pulled up.sa^-ing, 'I cannot stand
the pain of this leg of mine any longer, the London boot-
maker has made the leg of my right boot so tight that when I
was dragging it on in the dark this morning the riding breeches
got so wedged and crumpled upon the calf of the leg that its
pressure has been intolerable for some time past. Can you get
it right for me ? ' We dismounted, I made him sit on the
sand, got the boot off, cut a sUt in the leather, and we went on
again. I thought it strange at first that he had not required
this little service of me while we were still among the troops in
the sand hillocks, instead of waiting until we were out in the
barest part of the desert and quite visible to the enemy on two
sides ; but then it occurred to me that had this boot pulling-off

p

226 SIR \\1LLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

been performed in the midst of the men, who were bj^ no means
too happily situated imder the conditions then existing, there
might easily have spread the idea that the commander-in-chief
was down, and that the surgeons were preparing to cut his leg
off ; and so he had kept the pain to himself for hours rather
than ease it under the eyes of his soldiers.

We soon reached the cavalry. The two squadrons were kept
moving slowly on the desert in open column in order to
distract the aim of the enemy's gun-layers. A sheU had just
dropped into them and killed a horse. Its rider was on his feet
in a moment, calling out, ' Three cheers for the first charger in
the Life Guards killed since \Yaterloo ! '

An hour later the first of the reinforcements arrived upon
the field. The relay was specially welcome to the two Horse
Artillery guns, which had fired off two hundred and thirty
rounds that day. There were other targets now for the dozen
Egyptian guns to fire at ; but the army of Arabi had lost its
chance, one that was not likely to occur again in this short
campaign.

' The Chief ' ^ returned to Ismaiha at sunset. I was left to
see the reinforcements in and the bivouac arranged, then I
rode back along the canal under a brilliant moon. It was nine
o'clock when I reached Ismaiha. It had been a long day, more
than sixteen hours of saddle, sun, and sand, fourteen of them
on little except canal water. In six hours we were to be off
again to Magfar. It was not likely that the twelve Egyptian
guns which had kept fixing at us until after sundown would
have got far away from Magfar at daylight next morning ;
there would, therefore, be every chance of getting some of them
by a rapid advance of aU our mounted troops at daybreak.

I got a shakedown on the ofi&ce floor for a few hours ; and we
were again clear of Ismailia at 3.30 a.m. on the 25th August,
floundering through the deep sand in the dark. We reached
the scene of yesterday's fight as day broke. The troops, now
swoUen to a division, had left their bivouac, and were formed
up on the desert facing Mahouta, the cavahy and artillery on
the right, the infantry near the canal, the whole in attack
formation.

We were soon on the top of the ridge from which the Egyptian

1 The name thev called Sir Garnet bv.— E. B.

GENERAL DRURY LOWE'S CAVALRY 227

guns had pounded us on the previous day. A long stretch of
desert opened at the farther side towards Kassassin, ten miles
forward. The sun was now well up and the mists were drawing
off from the desert ; several trains were moving along the rail-
way in the valley to our left front ; clouds of dust forward
showed that artillery was retiring before us, A rapid survey
of the scene sufficed. The Chief called me to him. ' Gallop
to Drury Lowe/ he said ; ' tell him to take all his cavalry and
Horse Artillery forward, and coute que coute capture one or more
of those trains. An engine would be worth a lot of money to
me now.' I galloped off without waiting for the order to be
written, and soon overhauled the cavalry, which were moving
along the gravelly desert in advance, under a dropping shell fire
from some Egyptian guns on lower ground near the railway.
I delivered my order to General Drurj?- Lowe ; the cavalry went
forward at the best pace they could ; but the horses, all just
off shipboard, were already showing the severe strain of the last
twenty-four hours in sand and sun. Five hours later the rail-
way station at Mahsamah was captured by General Lowe ; the
Egyptian camp, with seven guns and large stock of ammunition
and rifles , was taken ; many railwaj^ trucks with camp equipment
and provision also fell into our hands, but the engines got away.

I cannot delay over the next fifteen days' work. It was hot
and hard on all ranks, for the very success which had attended
these opening moves in the campaign had imposed upon men
and animals exceptional difficulties. Twenty miles of the
canal were in our possession up to the lock at Kassassin, its
weakest spot, but it required no small strain upon troops and
transport to keep the force necessary to hold that important
point supplied with food and forage over these twenty miles of
shifting sands, when the canal was dammed and the railway
interrupted. When these obstacles and interruptions had been
surmounted, and two or three engmes were at length running
on the railway, the concentration of troops was swiftly accom-
plished, and on the evening of 12th September the Army
Corps was in position at Kassassin, six miles distant from the
Egyptian lines at Tel-el-Kebir.

One had been kept so busy during these preparatory days
that there was little time to give to matters of policy or politics
outside the actual labour. It was only on an occasional evening

228 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

that one could get away for a ride in the twilight over the sand
hills outside Ismaiha. It was a strange sight to see on those
occasions more than one hundred large ocean-going steamers
lying packed together within the compass of Lake Timsah,
their lights at night being visible over the desert for long
distances. It often occurred to me to wonder why no attempt
was made by the Egyptians to move a light column with a few
guns from Salahiyeh, only eighteen miles distant to the north-
west, over a good hard desert, and fire twenty or thirty shells
among those steamers packed like herrmgs in a barrel. There
was a Pasha with some eighteen thousand men and ten or
twenty guns lying at the end of the railway at Salahiyeh.
AVhat was that Pasha about all this time ? One evening in
the first week of September I happened to be out along the
Sweet Water Canal at the north end of Ismailia. At a point
where the desert approached the canal a small group of Arabs
and camels were squatting on the ground under the trees ;
there was no mistake about these men and their animals —
children of the desert, all of them. The sheik was a tall and
handsome man of the Howawak tribe. Presently a few men
of rank in tarbooshes came along in the twilight and passed out
into the desert mounted on those camels. The centre of that
little group of Egyptian officials was Sultan Pasha. They
disappeared m the direction of Salahiyeh. I need not have
troubled my head about the general, the eighteen thousand
men, and the ten or twenty guns at that place, nor did I after
that night. We wiU go on to Tel-el-Kebir.

The night of 12th September fell dark upon the desert ; there
was no moon. Stars were bright overhead, but when one
looked along the desert surface all things were wrapped in a
deep grey gloom impossible for the eye to pierce. All through
the afternoon the staff had been busy writing copies of the orders
of the commander-in-chief, and striking off smaU plans showing
roughly the formation in which the troops were to move from
the positions they were to occupy ia the desert lying north-west
of the lock at Kassassin and about one and a half miles distant
from it. Things went on as usual in the camp during the day
and evening, but when darkness had fuUy closed in the troops
moved out from their camps into the desert, leaving their fires
burning. The foint d'appui was a mound known as the

MARSHALLING THE FORCES 229

* Ninth Hill ' on the level, gravelly ridges north of the canal
and railway. At this spot a line of Engineer telegraph posts
had been erected, runnmg due west for a thousand yards.
This line was designed to give a marching point for the directing
column to move along when it first started. When the end of
that line of posts was reached, the direction would be by the
stars alone. The formation adopted for the movement of the
Army Corps across the six miles of open desert extending from
Ninth Hill to the lines of Tel-el-Kebir was at once simple and
yet closely calculated — simple, in order to meet the conditions
imposed by a moonless night ; thoroughlj^ thought out, because
the formation in which the Armj^ Corps started must be that in
which it would engage the enemy when he was found, as it
was hoped. There could be no manoeuvring, no afterthought,
no rectification after these seventeen thousand five hundred
officers and men with their sixty or seventy guns had been
launched out into the night from the plateau of Ninth Hill, a
gigantic bolt of flesh, steel, and iron shot westward into the
darkness.

The march and the attack were made in two lines. The first
line, of eight infantrj' battalions, moved in two distinct bodies,
separated from each other by an interval of twelve hundred
yards. Both of these bodies marched in lines of half-battalion
columns. The second line, moving a thousand yards behind
the first, was in a similar formation to the first line, but con-
tinuity between its brigades was maintained b}' a line of forty-
two field guns, which filled the twelve hundred yards from the
right of one brigade to the left of the other. On the extreme
right of this infantry and artillery formation marched General
Drurj'- Lowe's Cavalry Division, with two batteries of Horse
Artillery — twelve guns ; while on the extreme left, and m the
lower ground of the canal and railway, moved the Naval
Brigade and the Indian Division. The entire front of the
formation measured from north to south seventy-four hundred
yards ; its depth from east to west was about two thousand
yards. From the desert at Ninth Hill to the lines of Tel-el-
Kebir was all but four miles in a direct line. The surface
undulated sHghtly, but maintained a general uniform level of
from a hundred and ten feet to a hundred and thirty feet
above the sea. It was throughout hard enough to make

230 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

movement easy, and yet sufficiently soft to make it almost
noiseless. We were aU in position by eleven o'clock, lying in
the desert near Ninth HiU as silent as the stars that seemed
the only living things in view.

About half-past one the march began due west. We went
slowly forward for less than an hour, then halted and lay down.
It was a sort of trial mile to test the working of the scheme,
the steering of the great mass, and its discipline. All had
worked smoothly, there was no noise, no confusion, everything
had gone mysteriously well, as a clock works as regularly in
the night as in the daylight.

During this halt I was lying on the sand near the commander-
m-chief (he had told me to ride beside him that night) ; the staff
were scattered on the desert close by. I held the reins of my
horse twisted round my arm, for the drowsy hours had come.
We had been at work aU day, and it was easy to drop off to
sleep on this cool, dusky sand bed. I had a second charger,
ridden by a groom, following in rear. I had told the man to
keep a tight hold of this horse at any halt on the march, for
the animal had a nasty temper, and a way of his own on all
occasions. I tried aU I could to keep awake during the halt,
but could not succeed ; the blmking stars above, the vast, dusky
desert around, which already seemed as though it had swaUowed
our host, the deep silence that prevailed, all tended to produce
a state of semi-consciousness or partial oblivion. AU at once I
felt something moving close to me. I was wide awake in-
stantly. Two horses were there beside me, the one fastened to
my arm, the other standing beside him, saddled, and with the
reins trailing on the ground. It was my second horse. The
servant who was in charge of him, sleeping a hundred j^ards
behind, had let my horse go, and the animal, more intelligent
than the man, had picked his way through sleeping men and
horses until he got to his old stable companion, with whom he
stood quietly — aU his temper tamed, and his rough manners
softened by the strange desert night-world in which he found
himself. About three o'clock we began to move forward again.
(My groom had come up to seek me m consternation.) The
night was now darker than ever ; the stars by which we had
heretofore moved had gone below the western desert, but the
Pole-star was always there. By it we were able to find new

MARCH GUIDED BY THE STARS 231

lights on which to steer west. For more than an hour now
the march went on in absolute silence, except for one strange
occurrence. Suddenly to our right front a peal of wild and
hilarious laughter rang out in this deep stillness. It ceased
almost as abruptly as it had arisen. One expected that some
alarm might have followed this weird, unwonted outburst, but
the void was all still again. It afterwards transpired that a man
in one of the Highland regiments of the leading brigade of the
Second Division had carried a bottle of very strong rum with
him, and his repeated application to this source for sustaiu-
ment during the march had ended in a hysterical paroxysm.
Fortunately, we were at the time more than a mile away from
the enemy's position.

During the next hour the strain of things grew. I rode on
the left of the commander-in-chief. He had given the leading
of the staff group to me. As one by one some guide-star
dropped into the mists that lay deep upon the horizon, another
star higher in the heavens had to be taken for direction, and
that at times became obscured or dimmed by some passing
cloud ; but at no time was the Pole-star, over my right shoulder,
and the star in front, upon which I had laid my horse's ears,
hidden at the same moment. Sir Garnet Wolseley had in his
possession a very fine repeater watch given to him by the late
Lord Airey. By striking this watch he knew the exact moment
of the night, and as the minutes between four and five o'clock
began to strike longer numbers, they seemed to draw into
tighter twist aU the strands of our expectations. And yet, as
I can see it now, what did it matter to this old desert and to
these older stars ? ' Our guides,' we thought them. Ours !
Had not Moses led his Israelites here three thousand years ago ?
Had not Napoleon marched the best soldiers known to the world
over these sands and under the same stars ? Countless Pharaohs
had driven their chariots across these brown ridges ; and one
day did there not come along this route into Egypt a man
leading an ass on which a woman rode, bearing in her arms a
Babe, who was to be a wider conqueror than they all ? What
did our little night-march matter in that catalogue or context ?
Perhaps the poor hysterical Scottish soldier, whose weird laugh
broke so rudely upon the desert silence an hour before, knew as
much about it as the best of us !

232 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

It was about half-past four when the commander-in-chief
told me to ride in the direction of Sir Archibald Alison's High-
land Brigade and teU him to move forward as rapidly as
possible, as the entrenchments must now be close before us,
and the daylight could not be far off behind us. I took ground
towards the right front, and soon struck full upon the Highland
Brigade. It was a moment of very considerable danger and
confusion to that body of men. An order to halt for a few
moments had been given by the brigadier a little while earher.
This order passmg from the centre to the flanks did not reach
the outer companies for some moments ; thus, when the centre
companies halted, the outer ones still continued moving, though
keeping the touch, as it was caUed, inwards. The result was
that the flank battalions wheeled inwards and lay down m a
kind of half -circle. When the word to advance was again given
in a low voice, they moved to their respective fronts and came
nearly face to face with each other. A terrible catastrophe
might easil}'- have happened in the case of raw and inexperienced
troops ; but discipline was good, and the brigade was reformed
in line by the efforts of the brigadier and his officers. I stayed
with Sir A. Alison until everything was straight, gave him the
message to push on with all possible despatch, and then turned
to find my chief. I had counted my horse's steps in coming to
the Highland Brigade, and calculating that the commander-in-
chief would have continued to move to his former front, I
steered a course south-west, as I had before come north-west.
Captain Maurice had accompanied me to the Highland Brigade.
WTien we got to a spot which I reckoned to be in the track of
the commander-in-chief's route I pulled up, and dismounted
in order to see better towards the east. Presently a few heads
appeared against the horizon. We were straight on the staff
track.

I reported what had happened, but that the brigade was
now in full march forward. There could be little doubt that
we were now not far from the enemy's works, but, so far as sight
and sound went, they might as well have been a hundred miles
away. At no time during this dark night had the stillness
of the desert space been more profound or the darkness deeper.
This desert seemed still to have kept embalmed in its sands
one of the old plagues of Egypt.

FIRE OPENS 233

The commander-in-cliief decided to dismount at this spot
and await developments. In the next twentj^ minutes I could
hear the repeater repeating its minutes frequently, ' Four,
forty, forty-five, fifty ' ; all was stiU dead silence. Looking
eastward, I thought that the dawn was already showing in the
horizon, but it was a dawn such as I had never noticed in the
eastern heavens before. A large shaft of pale Ught, shaped
like a sheaf of corn, and of the colour of pale gold, was visible,
shot straight up from the horizon some twenty degrees into
the heavens. It appeared to be rising from where the sun
would be, due east. I called the attention of the commander-
in-chief to this strange foreglow of the coming day, and he too
believed it to be the approaching dawn. It was in reality
the Great Comet of 1882, which had not been visible before,
as the comet was actually going round the sun at that time,
and was lost in the sun's raj's. It had got round now, and its
long tail, whisked before it, had become suddenly visible to
the naked eye, while the head was still lost in the solar raj's.

We mounted and rode on. We had only proceeded a short
distance when the all-pervading silence was broken hj a single
shot to our right front ; then came two or three more shots,
and then a thunderous roU of musketry, mixed with heavy-
gun fire, swelling from our right front far along the western
desert on either side. When this great volume of fire first broke
out all was stiU dark ; five minutes later, in that short dawn,
the eye was able to distinguish objects on the desert within a
quarter of a mile ; in ten minutes the landscape and the line
were aU revealed to us. To our left front a large earthwork
was sending shells on three sides. We were at first too close
to it for damage ; but it soon found our range — about a thou-
sand yards — and shells began to fall about us. This earthwork,
the largest of any in the enemy's defences, was an isolated
redoubt standing at least a thousand yards m front of the
main Ime of entrenchments. The record of the night-march,
with particular reference to this isolated and advanced sentinel
battery, is a very curious one. Had the march of the Highland
Brigade of the Eleventh Division been made along a due east
and west line from Ninth Hill, some portion of the left of the
brigade must midoubtedly have struck the work. I am not
sure that the centre of the line would not have come fuU against

234 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

it. It would be impossible to say what the ultimate effect
upon the fortunes of the day would have been, but it is safe to
say that the loss to the assailants must have been out of all
proportion larger than it actually was. I shall not here discuss
this question, but press on to the end.

As daj^ight broadened things took better shape. We could
see that the large work immediately on our left front stood at
a considerable distance in advance of the main line of works :
from this main line a body of cavalry was coming out in rear
of the advanced redoubt. Our big group of staff had been
ordered to scatter at this time, so as not to draw too con-
centrated a fire from this redoubt. The commander-in-chief
still kept me by him. I called his attention to the movement
of the enemy's cavalry. ' Order the squadron of the 19th
Hussars to meet them,' he said. It was not in sight. I
galloped back to meet it, and they went forward at a canter
in column of troops, passing within three hundred yards of
the eight-gun redoubt, and offering a splendid target to it. The
redoubt fired four or five shots as the squadron passed it, but
neither man nor horse was hit. When I rejoined the com-
mander-m-chief the firing of musketry and artillery was in
full swing, but the flashes from the big guns were dying out in
the increasmg daylight. We galloped to the right front, and
soon struck the main line of works. The desert was here dotted
over with wounded men, chiefly of the Highland Light Infantry ;
the old colonel of the Duke of Cornwall's was down with a
bullet through his jaws. Farther to our right, our line of forty-
two guns had broken into columns, and the leading batteries
had already entered the enemy's line. Galloping through the
gaps they had made in the parapet, we were soon inside the
works. The detached fort had continued to follow our course
with shells ; it was now the only unsilenced redoubt in the
enemy's line. Inside the works, the desert was strewn with
dead Egyptians, dead horses and camels. The sun was now
well above the horizon. To the right one could see the First
Division moving quickly in regular formation across the desert.
Portions of the Second Division were still in our front, descend-
ing the slopes towards the railway station of Tel-el-Kebir,
and to our left, where the desert sloped to the railway and
canal, the wrecks of i\.rabi's late army were strewn in all

AFTER THE BATTLE 235

directions. Down the slopes, through the camps, over the
railway, and across the canal, the white-clad fugitives were
flying south and west in dots, in dozens, in hundreds. Desultory
firing was going on everywhere, but actual fighting had ceased
thirty-five minutes after the first gun was fired.

It was about 6.20 a.m. when we reached the canal bridge at
Tel-el-Kebir. Beyond the canal lay the Wady Tumilat, a
narrow sheet of green lying between two glaring deserts. Two
or three hundred Highlanders, a squadron of cavalry, and some
odds and ends of moimted corps had just arrived. The first
thing to be done was to stop the shooting which was going on
at everything and often at nothing. The seamy side of a battle
was here painfully apparent ; anything seemed to be good
enough to let o£E a rifle at. Dead and wounded men, horses,
and camels were on all sides. Some of the wounded had got
down to the edge of the water to quench their thirst ; others
were on the higher banks, imable to get down. Many of our
ofl&cers dismounted and carried water to these unfortunates,
but the men were not all similarly disposed. I heard an
officer ask a man who was filling his canteen at the canal to
give a drink of water to a gasping Egyptian cavalry soldier
who was lying supporting himself against the battlement of
the bridge. ' I wadna wet his lips,' was the indignant reply.
Close by, in the midst of her dead and dying fellow-countrymen,
a woman attached to the Egyptian camp was washing her infant
at the canal, concentrating her attention on the child as though
to steady her thoughts ; and many of the wounded Egyptians
had managed, as they lay, to cover their heads with pieces of
paper to try and keep off the flies and the scorching sun.

When the orders for the movement of the cavalry and
Indian Division to Cairo and Zagazig were issued by the
commander-in-chief on the bridge at Tel-el-Kebir, and these
two bodies had started on their respective roads, I took up
my quarters at the lock-keeper's hut on the south side of the
bridge, had something to eat, and then started on a fresh horse
to go back over the battlefield.

The saying that ' dead men tell no tales ' has the he given
to it on every battlefield ; this one was no exception. I
directed my course to the part of the field and the entrench-
ments across which the Second Division had come. Vast

236 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

numbers of Egyptian dead cumbered the ground from im-
mediately behind the parapet where the Highland Brigade
entered to quite a mile within the works in the direction of
the bridge. This portion of the position had an mner double
line of works extending obliquely along it, facing north, and
it was among these lines and gun emplacements that the dead
lay thickest. They were often in groups of fifteen and twent}^
heaped together within the angles of smaU works into which
they appeared to have crowded ; the main line of entrench-
ments had also great numbers of dead behind it. The ground
showed everywhere the complete nature of the surprise which
had overtaken the enemy. Arms, accoutrements, uniforms,
the cotton clothes of the fellaheen, boxes of cartridges and food
— a general debris of everything lay exposed upon the desert.
Of wounded there were very few to be seen ; too many suc-
cessive waves of armed men had crossed this portion of the
jfield. The sun was now a flaming fireball overhead. I had
been at work for fully twenty consecutive hours. When I
returned to the lock-keeper's hut at the bridge, things had
not improved in the Wady Tumilat. Several men had managed
to get across the canal, and the people in the hamlets had been
robbed and ill-treated by these blackguards. This is part of
the performance of the lower sort of the soldier-mind : to
them war means plunder. It has always done so, and it wiU
always do so. Indeed, it may be truly said that the instinct
of plunder in some shape or form is the strongest passion
among men. That it comes out in war is only justifying the
old proverb that the ruling passion grows strong in death ;
death had been very plentifully exhibited that morning over
these three miles of desert from the Egyptian lines to the
bridge at Tel-el-Kebir.

In this respect I do not imagine that the instincts of man
have changed much since Moses marched this way three or
four thousand years ago. If anybody should be disposed to
doubt this opinion, I would ask him to read the Life of Sir
Neville Chamberlain at pages 143-150 of that remarkable work.
Sir Neville Chamberlain knew the realities of war as few men
knew them in our time, and when he raised his voice in a vain
protest against the whole horde of financial civilian- warriors
who were howling to let loose hell upon the women and children

SONS OF THE SOIL 237

of the Dutch republics some ten years ago, he knew what he
was speaking about.

Somebody said of the Egj^tian War of 1882 that it was
' the Counter-march of Moses/ Since that time poor Moses
has had rather a surfeit of wars, and perhaps to-day he is not
so ready to embark upon them in a general ' damn the conse-
quences ' sort of spirit.

There is one thing which I should like to put on record
regarding this battle of Tel-el-Kebir. Complete surprise though
it was to the Egyptian soldiers behind their entrenchments, thej''
nevertheless fought with the greatest determination against over-
whelming odds. Not a moment was given them to awake, form
up, prepare, or move into position. The assault fell upon them
as a thunderbolt might fall upon a man asleep. The leaders
in whom they could trust were, lilie themselves, fellaheen ;
few among them knew anything of war, its arts, manoeuvres,
or necessities ; they were betrayed on every side, yet they
fought stoutly wherever ten or twenty or fifty of them could
get together in the works, m the angles of the hnes, and in
the open desert between the lines. The heaps of dead lying
with and across their rifles facing the up-coming sim bore
eloquent testimony to that final resolve of these poor fellows.
Peace be to them, lying under these big mounds on the lone
desert — ten thousand, it is said. No word should soldier
utter against them ; let that be left to the money-changers.
They died the good death. Dust to dust. They did not desert
the desert, and Egypt will not forget them.

CHAPTER XV

Cairo. The fate of Arabi in the balance. Mr. WUfrid Blunt. Leaving
Egypt. To the Saskatchewan again. The Red Man.

All resistance in Egypt ceased at Tel-el-Kebir on 13th Septem-
ber. Cairo was surrendered on the 14th to a small force of
cavalry, and on the 15th Sir Garnet Wolseley, His Royal
Highness the Duke of Connaught, the staff, and a battalion
of the Guards reached the capital at 10 a.m. Redvers BuUer
and a sapper private drove the engine of the train that carried
us to Benha. The scene in the streets near the railway station
was a curious one. Several Pashas and officials were on the
platform, and we waited some time at the station for some
formality or other. BuUer said to me, ' Let 's get a cab and
drive to the Abdin Palace, where we are to live : I am very
hungry.' We did so, and in a quarter of an hour we were at
the palace. There was only an old Nubian ' bowab ■" in the
place. Not many Arabs were to be seen in the streets, and
most of them took little notice of us, though some scowled,
and the irrepressible Arab boy hissed vigorously at us as we
passed. The Abdin Palace looked the most enchanting place
of rest and coolness I had ever seen. What a change to those
lofty halls and broad staircases, cool corridors, gilded ceilings,
and crystal chandeliers from the blinding heat, the foul dust,
and the innumerable flies of the desert ! But all such things
without food are of little use to hungrjT- men, so we got into our
cab again and told the driver to go to an hotel. The first two
or three we tried were barred and bolted, and silent as the grave.
At last we struck one in which there was a ' bowab,' and after
a good deal of talk between him and the interpreter he con-
sented to open the door. Yes, there was food in the house,
he said, and he would cook some breakfast for us. In half an
hour he had an excellent omelette and a bit of meat served up,
and he confided to the interpreter that he knew where the key

23S

CAIRO IN '82 239

of the cellar was, though that door was also sealed. Most
excellent Nubian ! Down we went to the cellar, took one bottle
of claret from an old dusty, cobwebby bin, resealed and locked
the door, put up a paper over the lock saying what had been
done, and, having duly signed it, sat down to breakfast. We
were in a hurry, as there was plenty of work to be done at the
palace, so we ate our food and drank our wme without delay,
and went out again to the cab. So far, aU had gone weU in
the cool house, but once in the sun things went very differentl5^
My head had begun to swim ; the carriage seemed to be always
turning a very sharp corner ; my companion was looking at
me with a strange look on his face. ' Old chap,' he said, ' I
think we had better take a turn through the city before we
go back to the palace.' I quite agreed. At that moment I
would not have met the commander-in-chief for a good deal.
We drove about the half-deserted streets for half an hour,
and the effects of this wonderful old heady wine, suddenly
swallowed, went off almost as quickly as they had come.

Cairo was at this time a wonderful place. It can never be
again as it then was. Moses in Levantine form had not yet
come back. What pictures they were, those streets of old
Cairo ! It was my duty to hunt out all the tents I could find
in the storehouses of the citadel for the use of our troops,
as all the camp equipage was still at Kassassin. Arabi's late
officials, although they were all coffee, cigarette, and obsequious
courtesy, were in no hurry to show me the extent of their stores
and camp equipage, but I kept at them for two days, until I
had dug out sufficient for our immediate wants. The filth and
vermin in the permanent barracks everywhere made it perfectly
impossible to put European troops into them. At this work
I managed to see a great deal of the outer side of Cairene life,
and to get several glimpses into the inner scenes too. I had
to take over, with Herbert Stewart, the old palace at Abbas-
siyeh, and as the harem of the late Pasha of the blood was still
located in that building, the work was a protracted one ; for
the ladies had to be removed from room to room before we
were allowed to enter the apartments, and thus we were playing
a sort of hide-and-seek with them through the palace.

In a short time our men were comfortably provided for,
chiefly in tents on Gezireh Island, and then we had time to

240 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

do a little sightseeing in Cairo and its vicinity. Wonderful
sights some of them were. I got up one morning very early
in order to see the comet, which had now become visible at
that early hour. From the roof of the Abdin Palace one could
see the whole city and the land from Mokattim to the Pyramids.
Before day came, the Great Comet stood above where the sun
would rise. It resembled a vast wheat-sheaf of light, or a
flaming broom sent to sweep the stars out from the threshold
of the sun. The city slept in the shadows. Then, one by one,
from a hundred minarets rose the cry of the muezzin — the
weirdest wail of man to God that can be heard over the world.
Then as the light grew stronger the old domes of forgotten
sultans and Mameluke chiefs could be distinguished rising
above the city buildings to the east and south, and looking
westward across the palm groves that fringed the great river
one saw the Pyramids changing from grey to rose-pink in the
growing light — vast and clear-carved as though they had been
finished yesterday, and had not saluted the sunrise over
Mokattim for twice three thousand years. ' If you make the
canal from Suez to the Mediterranean you will bring the
English into Egypt," said Mehemet Ali in his old age, as he sat
in the window of his little palace in the citadel looking out
upon that wondrous scene below. Well, they made the Suez
Canal, and the English came into Egypt by it, and their bugles
were now sounding reveille from camp and quarters in the
city ; nevertheless, somehow these giant sentinels standing
erect in the desert, who began their watch six thousand years
ago, seemed as they reddened in the sunrise to be even smiling
at the thought that this new invader of the Nile Valley was to
be the last they were to look at.

Nothing in the world has lasted as Egj'-pt has lasted. They
wiU tell you that the tombs and temples of the Nile have defied
the tooth of time because of the air, the sand, and the sun of
Egypt ; but far more wonderful has been the lasting of the
Egyptian people amid the mud, the yellow water, and the
lentil gardens of the land. A thousand invaders have swept
this Delta. Egypt has rubbed them all out one after the other.
What was the secret ? A Turkish officer gave me the only clue
to it I ever got. ' When a man of my regiment,' he said,
' comes and asks me to be allowed to marry, I ask him, " Whom

§\

ARABI BROUGHT TO THE ABDIN 241

do you want to marry ? " and he generally replies, " I want
to marry a Nubian or a negro " ; and when I ask the reason,
he says, " Because then my children will be Turks ; whereas,
if I marr}^ an Egyptian girl, the children will be Egyptians." '

You look in vain in Egypt to-day for any distinctive feature
or figure of Turk, Circassian, Mameluke, or Greek ; all are
Egyptian, and, strangest part of it all, are Egyptian in the
face and form of the type which you find graven on tombs and
temples that were built many thousand years ago. How has
this result been arrived at ? I thmk it can only be explained
by the simplicity and the uniformity of the elements out of
which the bodies of the children of Egypt have been built —
Nile mud and Nile water, fashioned and fertilised into Nile
food, through the agency of the Nile sun.

On the 18th September it was thought necessary to move
Arabi Pasha from Abbassiyeh to the Abdin. The most
truculent among the old Circassian and Syrian officers in the
service of the Khedive soon after this entered Cairo, and their
enmity to Arabi was so bitter that his life was in danger at
their hands. A very base and cowardly attack and outrage
was made upon him one night in his prison. There were
circumstances connected with the secret history of the con-
stitutional party in relation to the ex -Khedive Ismail and
the present one, Tewfik, which made the assassination of Arabi
Pasha quite a possible contingency. ' Dead men tell no tales '
— nor would even a dead ' Pasha of three tails.' The next
plan was to get Arabi tried by a court-martial composed of
Circassian and other officers of this class, and sentenced to
death as an Egyptian in rebellion against his country and its
ruler. There was a very real danger that this course might be
followed. The bondholder would not be strenuously opposed
to it, and his representatives, who were then in the ascendant
in Cairo, made no pretence that this course would not have
been thoroughly in keeping with their wishes. A number of our
own officers were also in favour of it, but there were others
who thought otherwise. I remember being at the Abdin when
Arabi was removed thither from Abbassiyeh. A large group
of officers had gathered in the verandah of the building to see
Arabi arrive. He was brought under escort in a carriage.
He alighted, and began to ascend the steps as one tired and

Q

242 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

weary. When he saw the group of officers he pulled himself
together, drew himself up, and saluted us with dignity. I
noticed that only one officer besides myself returned the
prisoner's salute ; that one was General Drury Lowe. I was
in good company.

A we3k later Khedive Tewfik was brought into Cairo under
the protection of our troops, and for several days after his
arrival the fate of Arabi hung in the balance.

It is now made pretty clear, by the publication of papers and
private correspondence of that day, not only that the putting
to death of Arabi under the shelter of Khedivial authority was
an idea perfectly agreeable to persons in very high ministerial
positions in England, but that its frustration was largely due
to the devoted efforts made by Mr. Blunt and a few other
friends of justice at the time in London.

Of course, I could know nothmg of aU this in Cairo. I was
immersed at the time m the details of my official work with
the troops. Sickness of a grave character had broken out
among the army, and changes of camp sites, hospital arrange-
ments, etc.; occupied all my time. But m the evening at
our mess I heard the fate of Arabi frequently discussed, and
it was easy to see that the tide of opmion was flowing strongly
against the prisoner.

It was announced one evening that the chief of the staff.
Sir John Adye, would leave for England next mornhig to
resume his duties at the War Office. A thought struck me.
I had known Sir John many years ; I knew him to be a straight
and honourable soldier, and a personal friend of Mr. Gladstone.
It had become quite clear to me by this time that the larger
part of the information which had been transmitted to England
from Egypt during the past six months bearing upon this
National movement had been either grossly exaggerated or
was absolutelj^ false and misleading. Many of the men who
were engaged in transmitting this information were profound
haters of the ministry then in power, and particularly of their
chief, Mr. Gladstone, and to some of them the idea of making
that statesman an accessory before the fact to the judicial
assassination of Arabi was possessed of a sort of subtle and
refined satisfaction. It is curious to mark now in the pages
of Mr. Blunt's extraordinarj^ book the accuracy with which,

A LETTER 243

in my own small sphere, I had gauged the situation. When I
got to my room in the Abdin Palace that night I sat down and
wrote a letter to Sir John Adye, which I intended to hand to
him next morning at the Cairo railway station when he was
starting for England. I began : — •

' Nothing but a very strong belief in the necessity of doing what I
can to avert what I beheve would be a national crime makes me
now write to you upon a subject far removed from the sphere of
military duty which has hitherto given me a claim as an officer of
your staff to communicate with you. I write to urge you to tele-
graph from Alexandria to England to stop the execution of Arabi
Pasha (should the Court which is sitting, or about to sit, condemn
bim to death) until you have arrived in England and are in a position
to place before the Government a full view of the Egjrptian question
as it will then have taken its place in your mind, in just and true
proportion.

' You may ask why I, holding a subordinate position on the staff
of this expedition, should thus take up a question removed from the
class of work I have hitherto done in this campaign. I would, in
the first place, point out that leniency toward men who have been
in rebellion has seldom been thrown away in history : the wounds
inflicted in war, no matter how deep they may be, soon heal compared
to those which are left in the memory of a people by the work of the
scaffold.'

Then I instanced the great war of the South against the
North in America, where, after four years of tremendous
fighting, only one hfe had been taken on the scaffold, and that
one the hfe of a man who had starved to death and cruelly
maltreated thousands of Northern soldiers.

' If we go further back in history, can any one say that the
execution of Ney and Labedoyere made the Bourbon throne more
secure, or gave the Settlement of Vienna a longer lease of exist-
ence ? Did St. Helena ensure the continuance of the restored
dynasty ? Had there been no St. Helena, there might have been
no Second Empire. But let us look at this matter from another
point of view. In what light wUl history regard the execution of
Arabi ? It will be written that we, a great and po^^•erful Empire,
vanquished this man and then surrendered our prisoner to the
vengeance of weak, and therefore cruel, rulers. The voice of the
civilised world \vill be against us. Legal technicahties and petty
quibbles will be forgotten, and history will record a strong verdict

244 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of condemnation against us. It is the same all along the line. It
will be useless to say the act was not ours, we cannot get rid of our
responsibility that way : the world will not accept the transfer.

' There is another point and I have done. It is perhaps a selfish
point. Will the execution, as a traitor, of the man against whom
all our immense preparations have recently been made — the seas
covered with our ships, the desert with our men — will the execution
of the object of all this preparation, effort, power, as a felon, redound
to our own proper pride, or to " the pomp and circumstance " of
our profession ? It strikes me that in condemning Arabi to the
scaSold we cut down the measure of our own achievement to a very
low point. Another thing I can foresee. If Arabi's execution should
be carried out, many of the men who are now foremost in calling for
it will be the first to turn round and fling the stone of reproach at
the English statesman whom they hate with far greater intensity
of feeling than that Avhich they bear to their Egyptian prisoner,
and they will not fail to pursue Mr. Gladstone to his grave with
the cry of blood-guiltiness.

' I must apologise for the length to which this letter has run.
I can only excuse it by pleading the never-failing kindness and
courtesy I have received from you whenever my duties as your
staff officer brought me into contact with you.'

I have taken this letter from a rough draft in an old pocket-
book in which I find it most indifferently pencilled. I sat up
all night writing and copying it out, and when all was finished
it was time to go to the railway station to see the old chief of
the staff off on his journey.

I handed the letter to him on the platform. I thought there
was a look in his eye as I gave him the document as though
he imagined it was some matter of personal promotion or
reward about which I was troubling him, and I just said,
* Not about myself, sir.' I never heard again what happened,
but the trend of events soon satisfied me that the executioners
were not to have it all their own quick way at once. At the
time my letter was written (at the end of September), the
execution of Arabi by order of the Khedivial court-martial had
been virtually settled, as we now know. On 27th September
it was announced that the court was to be named instanter.
The correspondent of the Times in Egypt reported that ' the
Khedive, Sherif and Riaz Pashas all insist strongly on the
absolute necessity of the capital punishment of the prime

AN OPEN TRIAL FOR ARABI 245

offenders, an opinion from which there are few, if any, dissen-
tients.' That this court would then have been a packed
tribunal of the very worst description was just as certain as
that the sun would rise on the Mokattim side of Cairo the next
morning. All the passions were now in entire possession of the
Egyptian vantage points : the Levantine jackal, the Khedivial
eunuch, the bloodthirsty Circassian, the Greek money-lender,
the many representatives of Dame Quickly 's old and highly
endowed profession — these were now flocking into Egypt in
thousands. With them were coming the former advisers of the
EngHsh Foreign Office, whose persistently erroneous counsels
had, as we now know, produced the crisis which had just been
closed by the slaughter at Tel-el-Kebir. Behind these various
persons and professions this unfortunate fellah, Arabi, had
ranged against him the entire tribe of the Levites and High
Priests of Finance, foreign and Egyptian, from the heads of
the great Jewish banking-houses in Europe to the humble
' schroff ' money-changers at the street comers of Alexandria.

With all these powerful interests, schemes, monopolies,
policies, and professions in league against his life, the chances
of the late leader of the National party might well seem hope-
less ; and so they would have been had not breathing time been
given. Whatever may have been Mr. Gladstone's earlier pre-
possessions against Arabi and the National part}', his better
angel prevailed, and it was decreed that a full and open trial
should be accorded him. That was sufficient to ensure his
ultimate safety. Neither Turk, Jew, Infidel, nor imaginary
Christian could face the publication in court of the secret
papers of which Arabics counsel were now in possession. These
papers, cleverly hidden from the Khedive's pohce by the wife
of the prisoner, saved the situation. Arabi owed his life, under
Providence, to the splendid pluck and generous purse of Mr.
Wilfrid Blunt ; and, looking back upon it all to-day, I am
not sure that the memory of Mr. Gladstone is not still more
deeply indebted to the same gentleman.

Many days of that time live in my memory, but one has
particular place in it. The commander-in-chief gave a huge
picnic at the Pyramids of Sakkara, the site of ancient Memphis.
We went by steamer to Beddreshin on the top of the Nile flood.
More than one hundred Arab donkeys were collected under

246 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the palms on the west shore. These were quickly mounted,
and away we went for Sakkara. Nearly all the higher officers
of the expedition were there — Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Duke of
Connaught, Generals Willis, Graham, Alison, and some nmety
others of various degrees and qualities, several civilians being
among them. To most of the party the Egyptian donkey
was still a strange riding animal. If you tried to ride as in an
English saddle, discomfort was inevitable ; the stirrups were
not fixed, and if j^ou leaned more to one side than the other the
shding stirrup leather went in the same direction, and a fall in
the sand was the result. If you sat well back, almost over the
donkey's tail, and threw your legs well out in front, you soon
found a balance which seemed to fit into the animal's short
gallop. Prominent among our uniformed party rode Colonel
Valentine Baker Pasha, who, for some reason known only to
himself, had come to the picnic in a fashionable London frock-
coat, a tall black silk hat, and the rest of his costume in due
keeping. AU went calmly and quietly on the outward journey.
We saw aU the wonderful sights ; the house of Tei, that mar-
vellous interior wherein all the industries, the duties, the
domestic life, and the amusements of the oldest civilisation in
the world are graven and coloured in characters as clear and
vivid as though they had been done yesterday. Then we
dived down through the sand of the desert into that vast rock
warren of the Serapeum, which the genius of the great French
Eg5^tologist first revealed to our modern world. The wonder
of it all was endless as one looked at these vast sarcophagi
of polished syenite. How did these old people get aU the
seventy solid single-stoned tons of granite or porphyry into huge
side niches which open from the vast rock gallery under the
desert ? Greater even than the wonder was the prodigious
foolishness of the whole thing. AU for dead bulls ! Stifled
with the heat, the candle smoke, and the smell of bats of this
subterranean bull warren, we got up at last into the desert
air, and were soon at work upon the scores of good things
which Cook had provided for our refreshment by order of the
commander-in-chief. More tombs, more pyramids, more stone
carvings, more hieroglyphics, more sarcophagi, and at last we
were off again on donkey-back for the Nile. Then the fun
began. The donkey boys prodded the animals behind, some

THE FELLAH IN HIS HOMELAND 247

of the younger guests raced their donkeys at full speed in
front, the burly j&gure of Baker Pasha seemed to become the
central point in the human stream that poured over the desert
sand, and then along the top of a great embankment built to
retain the waters of the inundation. \^Tiat with the heat of
the sun and the stifling atmosphere of the many sepulchral
chambers and galleries visited, aU our clothing had become
bedraggled and saturated ; but if this was the case with khaki
and dust-coloured homespun, how fared it with the black frock-
coat, tall silk hat, and fashionable nether gear of our Piccadilly-
clad Pasha ? Words could not paint that picture : the silk
hat was bent and broken by frequent contact with the roof of
rock cavern and tomb chamber ; the frock-coat looked as
though several policemen had been tussling with its owner ;
the legs of the fashionably cut trousers had worked up under
the exigencies of the donkey saddle until the ankles were
where the knees ought to have been. There was no stopping : —

' With hark and whoop and wild halloo
No rest Ben Bam'se's echoes knew.'

And thus we reached the steamer at Beddreshin satiated with
sarcophagi, and with a thirst for tea such as only the dust
of six thousand years of mummy powder could give us.

I left Eg3rpt at the end of October with feelings of keen regret.
There was nothing to make one imagine at that moment that
events would soon arise in the vaUey of the Nile which would
call one back to that region. The Egyptian chapter seemed
closed, and I was sorry to quit a land in which the ends of time
seemed to be always touching each other ; the oldest reHcs
of man's pride and power lying prone in the dust, the latest
efiforts of his endless husbandry blooming fresh and fair over
aU the garden of the Delta. More interesting to me than the
tomb or temple of the dead past m the desert was the endless
picture of the life of the fellah in the soft green level of his
homeland ; his fields of grain m their many stages between
seed and stubble, his plots of onions, sweet-smeUing beans,
deep green clover, cotton, and flowering flax ; the brown
canal banks, where the cattle, goats, donkeys, and camels stood
in the shade of the acacia-trees in the hot hours, munching the
stalk of sugar-canes, or nibbhng the golden ' tibbin ' ; the big

248 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

blue buffaloes, with their horns and noses just showing above
the yellow water ; and the date palms rustling in the cool
north wind round some old marabout's tomb, whose little
dome shows very white over the green fields ; and under the
glorious sunshine the great flocks of white pigeons skimming
over villages, the strange ' paddy ' birds standing in the
inundated fields ; above all, man, woman, and child at work
everywhere, sowing, reaping, weeding, working the water
wheel in winter, and in summer, when the Nile is pouring down
its flooded waters, opening the little watercourses from one
field to another with their feet to let the saving flood flow on
its way.

To-day it is the same as it was in that far-off time of the
Exodus, when Moses told his people that ' The land whither
thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt from
whence ye came out, where thou sowedst the seed, and
wateredst it with thy foot as a garden of herbs ; But the land
whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, and
drinketh water of the rain of heaven.'

This short war had at least been the means of teaching me
a few great lessons which were of use later on. I saw and
learnt a good deal of the machinery by which the thing can be
done to-day, the turn given to the wheel which sets ' public
opinion,' as it is called, into one channel or the other. I thought
the war was ended, but I was wrong. Doubtless the Great
Comet, as I saw it that morning flaming over Mokattim, knew
more about what was coming than any of us : —

' Comets importing change of times and states,
Brandish your fiery tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars.'

Quite so ; but which had been the bad, revolting star in this
Egyptian business ? That one, ' Canopus,' famous night- jewel
of the southern desert ; or that other one of the northern
heavens, ' Arcturus,' which had guided us to overwhelm the
sleeping fellaheen host at Tel-el-Kebir ? The Egyptian peasant
in revolt against his plunderers, or an English Liberal Govern-
ment in revolt against Liberalism ?

Some day, perhaps, Egypt will help us to answer the ques-
tion. She has ever played a strange part in the destiny of

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AGAIN 249

empires. The late Lord Salisbury came to the conclusion
towards the close of his life that we had an unfortunate facility
for ' backing the wrong horse/ I think we have had an equal
knack of generally hanging the wrong man.

When the army of Egypt returned to England it was the
recipient of a good deal of public and private adulation and
reward, which lasted through the winter and into the summer
of the next year.i Then things assumed their old shapes
again.

One day, in the late summer of 1883, 1 received a letter from
a syndicate of company promoters in the city of London
asking me if I would undertake a journey to the north of the
Saskatchewan River, in order to investigate and report upon
a large tract of land in that region, about the agricultural
capabilities of which thej^ were desirous of obtaining trust-
worthy information previous to the formation of a joint-stock
company for its future development. It was added that Lord
Dunraven had been also approached in the matter, and that
he was willing to undertake the journey provided I was also
agreeable to it. Of course, I accepted. I forget what the
emolument was to be — one hundred pounds, and out-of-pocket
expenses, I think ; but that didn't matter. I would have
given more than I could then afford to give merely to see again
the great prairies and the pine forests of my earlier days.

The season of the year, the autumn, didn't much matter.
Indeed, nothing matters when your heart is in a matter.

After several delays I left Liverpool on the 6th October
in a brand-new steamer, the Oregon. She was the latest vessel
then off the stocks, and she was expected to break the record
of that time, which she did, gettmg into New York on the
evening of the 14th. Ship, ship's company, passengers, and
ocean were at their best. Every human item seemed to be
represented in the two hundred passengers. Beauty and the
Beast could be studied close at hand. The charm of the one
lies in its great contrast to the ughness of the other ; but
we ought not to say the ' Beast,' for there are very few beasts
that are ugly ; it is the mass of ugly people m the world that
makes us worship beauty when we see it.

It was interesting to look at America again after an absence

^ I was honoured by being appointed extra A.D.C. to the Queen.

250 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of ten or a dozen years. The sharpening process seemed to be
stiU going on among the population. Is it destined to continue
until the original Caucasian has been fined down to vanishing
point ? At the moment it seemed to me that the Irish and the
German stock were having the reproduction business all to
themselves, but the African black was beating them both.

I got away up the Hudson Valley the next day. Commercial
enterprise was so far unable to spoil the glories of the sunset
skies and their reflection on the broad river, but it had seized
on every rock and headland on the shores to defile and deface
them with hideous advertisements of pills, purgatives, and
pick-me-ups ; even the moonlight was sought as an illuminator
for these horrible concoctions. One asked oneself who were
the men and women who swallowed these things ; and were
the ' Castoria Bitters ' and the various Capsicums, the names
of which were written in five-feet letters on the grand old
rocks, the real grindstones upon which the sharpening or
attenuating process of the American human family was
going on ?

Dawn found us in Vermont. A great round moon, now safe
from the desecration of the city advertisement, was going down
in fleecy folds of vapour bej^ond Lake Champlain ; the big
woods were glowing in their autumn tints as the sun came up,
mixing his bright, new golden coinage with the molten moon-
beams in the west. Wliite frost was on the ground, and there
was ice on the little pools already. There was no time to lose
if the Saskatchewan River was to be crossed free of ice. I
hurried on north, for the objective point was a station called
Troy, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, from whence a stage
waggon ran once a week to Prince Albert, on the North Sas-
katchewan. If I missed that weekly stage, then there could
be no chance of getting to my destination before the winter
had shut up the land from human observation. How easily
can our best-laid plans be jeopardised ! At Milwaukee, on the
19th October, the train stopped for dinner. After the meal,
by a stupid mistake I got into what seemed to be the last car-
riage in the St. Paul's train. A moment later I saw the carriage
in front move slowly away from the one in which I sat. The
northern train was moving so very slowly that I thought I
could catch it running, for we were still in Milwaukee city. I

-Annan & Sons Glascow fr^rn: a liotocrnajiibf Heath.Plymcr-ith

^

A FRIEND IN NEED 251

was out and after the train in a second, going aU I could, and
neither gaining on it nor losing. I had a large overcoat on,
and but for that I think I should have caught it up. All at
once there came a break in the track on which I was runnuit^.
caused by a switch block in the rails ; over that I jumped, and
as I lighted at the far side of the obstacle, bang went something
in the calf of my leg. I stopped, dead lame ; away steamed
the express, with aU my baggage, and all my hopes of getting
to the Saskatchewan for another fortnight. Suddenly I heard
behind me the roar and whistle of an engine. I looked back
and saw a single locomotive coming on my line of raUs at a
rapid pace. As it approached I noticed that the driver was
leaning out to one side of his engine and shouting at me, but
as I had already hobbled out of his track I didn't know wha.t
he wanted of me. Then I saw him slowing down, and I guessed
what he was at. He pulled up suddenly. * Jump on,
stranger ! ' he shouted. I caught hold of the rail of his engine,
and lifted myself by it to the driver's platform. He gave one
glance to see that I was safely on, then he seemed to let her head
go, and away we went forward. By this time the St. Paul's
express, stUl going slowly, for there were numerous street
crossings on the line, was a quarter of a mile ahead. Holding
on all I knew, for I was now quite out of breath, I gave one look
at my good friend. He was a big strong man, with a great
round face and a lot of hair round it. His eyes were steadily
fixed on the rails ahead, the train in front, and the crossing-
places ; both his hands were on the stops and goes of his engine,
and he was able to check his speed or let go as he pleased.
When we got clear of the streets he let out fuU speed, and was
soon within a hundred yards of the express, which so far had
seemed to take no notice of us, and I began to fear that my
good friend would give up the stem chase in disgust. But I
heard him growling something about * going to St. Paul before
he 'd stop ' ; and I was completely reassured, for there was a
light in the big eye that was nearest to me that told me it had
now become altogether a personal question between him and
the express.

As though to bring matters to a climax, he now let out his
engine to a full gallop, and I thought he was going to ram the
train in front, for he would run up quite close to it, and then

252 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

suddenly rein in his charger. AU the time he was making a
wonderful amount of steam whistling. At last the express
caved in and pulled up ; then only did my friend relax his
stern silence. He helped me to get down from his engine.
I flung a five-doUar note on to the floor of his loco-
motive, told him he was the best friend I had ever met
in the world, and then hobbled to the last carriage of
the express, and scrambled on its platform. As I did so
I saw that the driver had quitted his engine and followed
me. He piit the five-dollar bill on the platform, saying,
* Thank you, stranger, but it wasn't for that I did it,' and
went straight back to his engine. In another second we
were steaming north. I then saw that the number of his
engine was 218. When we got to St. Paul next morning I
wired to the stationmaster, Milwaukee, asking the name of the
driver of 218 engine ; the reply came that the name was Bill
Macauley. It was worth a sprung leg just to have met such
a man. The passengers were very kind. They had been
watching the race with interest, and one of them, seeing me so
lame, brought out a bottle of ' Pond's Extract.' According to
its label this compound cured every pain and ailment of man,
woman, and child ; that it relieved the great pain I was then in
is certain, and, though lameness lasted for many days, it gradu-
ally wore wa5^ Of my good friend I shall have more to say later.
I got to Troy station, three hundred miles west of Winnipeg,
and found there an old friend waiting for me — another Mr.
Macauley, this one an old officer of the Hudson Bay Company,
with whom I had spent some days at Dun vegan, on the Peace
River, thirteen years earlier. The stage was not to leave" Troy
for a few hours, and my friend had his two-horse buggy at the
station to drive me some two miles to his fort at Qu'appelle,
which the stage would pass some time later in the day. I have
not forgotten the beauty of that drive across the rolling prairies
from the railway to Qu'appelle, in which one was brought all
at once face to face with the old-remembered glories of space,
silence, and sunset ; with the extraordinary clearness of the
prairie atmosphere, through which the blue line of horizon
lay clear-cut fifty miles away ; the intense blue of the long,
winding lakes ; the copses of yeUow cotton-wood ; the oak
thickets, now crimson in the Fall; and the curious, white sand-

THE 'CIVILISERS' 253

stone cliSs to the north of the lakes, the echo at the foot of
which had made the early French fur hunters give its sweet-
sounding name to the place two hundred years earHer.

My joy at finding myself once more in a lone land of silent
beauty was, unfortunately, of short duration, for when, three
or four hours later, the stage stopped at the Hudson Bay fort,
I saw at a glance that I should have as companions through the
three hundred miles to Prince Albert three or four of as rough
specimens of the first-fruits of Canadian settlement as could
possibly be met with in the Great West.

That evening the stage stopped at a lone hut named O'Brien's.
The stage manager or owner was of the party, as the trip was
a sort of pioneer imdertaking to bring the Saskatchewan into
touch with the new civilisation of the Pacific railroad. This
new civilisation appeared to be terribly anxious to begin its
labours ; and of its apostles it might be said that they were
hard at work swearing themselves into office through the
whole three hundi-ed miles that still intervened between the
railway and the savagery of the Saskatchewan. As there
were no Indians or half-breeds or wild animals in this region,
the inanimate things of hill, wood, water, and plain received
their full baptism of fire at the hands or tongues of the new-
comers ; the driver scattered imprecations on everj'thing ; the
lumberman smoked so incessantly that his benedictions could
only take form in occasional words jerked out between whiffs
of tobacco smoke, but they were strong words when they did
come. Of wit, even of a coarse kind, of humour of any kind,
there was none among these men ; it was all the dull, heavy,
cursing, spitting, eructating, and smoking kind of savagery.
In O'Brien's hut that evening I thought with regret of the old
days in some Indian or half-breed camp, where, if the floor-
space and the head-room were no larger, the study of human
character and habit was infinitely more interesting. When
the time for lying down came I took my roll of bedding outside,
and had a capital night's rest in the open prairie in a tempera-
ture of only twelve degrees below freezing-point. I was up
at 6 A.M., and had the satisfaction of making the lazy civiHsers
get up too. The driver was inclined to be aggressively impre-
catory, but I effectively silenced him by saying that if he would
kindly show me where he kept his oats, I should be glad to feed

254 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

his horses for him every morning at five o'clock. This offer
seemed completely to change his mental attitude towards me,
and I found, too, that whatever might be the prevailing tone
of his conversation with men, he was uniformly kind and
thoughtful about his animals.

On the 28th October we reached the South Saskatchewan,
at the same spot where I had lost my little black riding horse
through the ice just thirteen years earlier. It was strange
to look again at this and at other old scenes of camp and
adventure in those times of former travel. Many of the old
things of that time had gone for ever into the Silences. There
was not a buffalo to be seen from Wmnipeg to the Mountains ;
most of the Indian prairie tribes were broken up, and the wild
men who had followed the great herds and lived on them were
now scattered into a few isolated and remote reserves, destined
soon to disappear altogether from the land.

One thing was still here unchanged : it was the twihght.
Before that hour came the stage had reached its stopping-
place, and I was able to get away from its atmosphere to some
neighbouring hill, or by the edge of some lakelet, where one could
look again at some of the old sights, the great red sun going
slowly down over the immense landscape, and leaving the
western sky a vast half dome of rose-tipped wavelets from
horizon to zenith. Scarce a sound but the splash of a wild
duck on the placid lake, scarce a movement but the motion
of a musquash swimming in the rainbow-coloured water, his
head forming the beak of a bird-of-paradise, whose gorgeous
wings and body plumage were the widening ripples that
followed after.

In the last days of October I reached the land north of the
North Saskatchewan, which it was the object of my journey
to see, and at a point fifty miles north of the river I turned back
again to the south. I found that the million acres, which were
to become the property of the syndicate destined to exploit
them, foi-med an oblong block of territory tying to the south
and west of the sub-Arctic forest which roughly bordered it on
two sides. The Saskatchewan made the southern boundary,
and a range of low hills, called the ' Thickwood HiUs,' the
western. The land was of good quality, suitable for cultivation
or grazing. It had water and timber, and it lay between two

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 256

thousand to two thousand five hundred feet above sea-level.
The trail of the fur traders to the north lay directly through it.
In favourable years good wheat was grown on it, but summer
frosts as early as the 20th August had often injured the grain.
On the whole, looking to the great distance which intervened
between this region and the railwaj^s, I could not recommend
that it should be made the basis of a joint-stock company,
the capital of which was to be one to two million doUars. That
was the nature of the report which I submitted when I returned
to London. But of this more anon ; I have stiU to get back
there in this narrative.

In the Indian reservation I found my old acquaintance,
Mistawassis, the Cree chief of my former visit. Once a man of
fame and influence over the prairies, he was now reduced to a
very miserable condition. His story, told m his own way,
put the whole question, as Indian story always did, in short
and true language.

* In the old daj's,' he said, ' before the Canadians came,
we had food and clothes. At times, it is true, the snow caught
our people on the plains and we froze, or at times the buffalo
were few out on the prairies and we wanted food, but that
was only at times ; now we are always in want of food, our
clothes are fuU of holes, and the winter winds come through
them, to find our bodies thin for want of food. I can go back
for fifty years, but no time Like this time can I find. Our men
and women put on rags over rags, but it is only hole over hole ;
we cannot get warm. I once had plenty of horses, but they are
gone one by one to buy food. Most of the men who came to
this reserve with me are already dead, and only six j-ears have
gone since we came here. They (the Government) were to
have put glass windows in our huts, but only the frames without
glass came. Our oxen have died dragging flour here from
Prince Albert.'

Times had indeed changed with poor old Mistawassis since
I had seen him in 1870. He was then the owner of seven tj^
horses ; his buffalo robes were numerous ; he had hundreds
of bags of pemmican wherewith to trade with the Company for
tea and sugar. Alas for the Red Man ! it was the same here
on this North Saskatchewan as it had been on the Assineboine,
the Red River, the IMississippi, the Missouri, and a hundred

256 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

other rivers big and little over this Great West ; and yet it
was not one hundred years since the ' Blackbird,' chief of the
Minatarries, five hundred miles south, had asked that he might
be buried on the top of a hill overlooking the Missouri, so that
he might be able to see his white brother the trader passing
in his trading boats up and down the river.

I got back to the North Saskatchewan on 2nd November.
The ice was now forming rapidly, and it would soon set in the
broad channel, but we got over in the ' scow ' to Carlton with
only a wetting. The question was now how to get back to
the railwa3^ I hated the idea of the stage again. The pro-
spect of another five days' ' boarding and bunking ' with the
* civilisers ' was too much for me. The land north of the
Saskatchewan was still safe ; I would keep to it, follow the old
trail by Fort Pitt to Edmonton, and then make my way to
Calgary, which at this time was the end of the railway east of
the Rocky Mountains. It was a good six hundred miles, and
the winter was fast setting in ; but I had been over the road
thirteen years before, and some old friends in the Hudson
Bay Company were still alive along it. Preliminaries were
soon arranged through another old companion in travel,^ and
on the same afternoon I recrossed the river to the north shore,
saw the ' scow ' hauled up for the last time that year, and with
old Dreever, a cousin of the man who had been my guide in the
early part of the night, thirteen years ago, when we eluded the
search of Riel and Company at old Fort Garry, I turned my
head westward for Edmonton. We had an American buck-
board and three horses, all Dreever's property.

We camped that night by some large willows between two
frozen ponds. Wlien twilight came, and the wind blew in
gusts through the willows from far off, and I saw the horses
feeding on the ridge against the afterglow, I felt a silent joy
such as I had not known this time in its fulness. Here at last
was the lonely land still untouched. ' When we drew up the
scow,' I wrote that night, ' we cut the painter of " civilisation,"
but the savagery lies at the south side of the river.'

For ten or twelve days we drove at a trot through a rolling
land of mixed wood and grass, the latter now yellow like ripe
corn, and growing in places three and four feet high. The

1 Mr. Clarke, Hudson Bay Company.

CAMPING OUT 257

camping-places were good, with ample store of dry timber
for fuel. ' What a delight it is to be making a camp once more
with an honest man/ I find myself writing on the second even-
ing out. On the 3rd and 4th November there were beautiful
displays of the aurora before daybreak : veils of radiance
flung across the stars ; great showers of red and yellow light
pulsating and quivering from the northern horizon to the
zenith. The dawn would sometimes break in the east in
strange, deceptive mixings of earth and clouds. I would have
forgotten where earth and sky had met in the east when day
closed on the previous evening, and throwing back the blankets
next morning, I would see what seemed to be an immense lake
stretching far south-east to north-east, having its farther shore
clearly defined with bays, inlets, and islands in it, the nearer
shore only a short distance from our camp. The distant shore
seemed to rise mto mountains, with snow on their summits,
and stars above them. As dawn brightened the reflections
in the lake began to change in colour from grey silver to molten
copper, and then as the sun drew nearer the horizon the
whole phantasm of lake, mountain, and stars melted into the
realities of the daylight.

Dreever, the driver, like all the good men of mixed parentage
in the North- West, had in his nature the best instincts of the
wilderness. He possessed the power also of telling its stories
with a quaint choice of words which, though few and simple,
showed his genius for reproducing the scene he wished to
describe, with great and touching fidelity. One morning we
sighted the ' Swan Lake,' a sheet of blue open water lying to
the right. In the previous summer a French priest had come
there with six or seven Cree Indians to hunt moulting geese
and ducks, for the lake was a great haunt of wild birds. They
made a small ' dug-out ' bateau, and went out into the lake ;
a gale came on, the bateau overturned. The priest swam well,
and, one by one, he brought the Indians to the overturned boat,
to which they clung ; but they were not able to retain their
holds, and, one after the other, they were washed off by the
high-running waves. A child, his especial favourite, was thus
washed away three times, and was as often rescued and brought
to the drifting boat again. At last he too was swept off and
lost. Then the priest said, ' Why should I live 1 ' All those

R

258 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

who had come out with him in the boat were gone, and he it
was who had made them come, so he went too. There, where
the white strip of sand showed between the two lakes, the
boat and the bodies were drifted in by the winds, and the
priest and the Indians were buried there.

We reached Fort Pitt long after dark on the evening of the
6th, We found here a strange mixture of the old and the
new peoples ; the new represented by a Canadian police officer
who was a son of Charles Dickens, and the old having as its
champion the chief. Big Bear, who was supposed to be kept
in awe by some ten or twelve of Mr. Dickens's police stationed
at Fort Pitt. Mr. Dickens bore a striking resemblance to his
illustrious father. He struck me as having a keen sense of
humour. He had a habit of laughing, a soft, musical, thought-
inspired laughter, which was quite peculiar to him, and which
I think he may have contracted from the Indians, in whom
I had occasionally noticed it, the result, perhaps, of long-
continued silent watching and thinking upon animals, birds,
and the ways of men and women in the wilderness.

Ruskin has somewhere said that he didn't want to hear
theological discussions or sermons about the possibihty of
miracles as long as he could see the sun rise and set. The
Red Indian and the white sick man represent, perhaps, the two
classes of men who most frequently see the sun rise, and the
other world is not far off to many of these people.

Big Bear, who was supposed to be under the peculiar
supervision of Mr. Dickens's poUce, had persistently refused
to go upon a reservation. ' Why should I go into one place ? '
he used to ask the Hudson Bay officer and Mr. Dickens. ' Do
I not see all the Indians who go into one place die off faster
than ever they died by the guns and knives of the Blackfeet !
Are they not all starving ? ' They would tell him then that he
was old, and that that was the reason why the Canadian
Government wished him to be easy and comfortable on a
reserve. To which Big Bear would reply, ' It is true that I
am old, but I have fed myself for seventy j^ears. I can stUl
hunt and feed myself, and I will stay in the open country tiU
I die ; then, when I am dead, you can put me into some one
place if you like.' I heard here the same story I had been told
aU along the trail from the Touchwood Hills to Fort Pitt, a

THE END OF THE OLD LIFE 259

distance of seven hundred miles as I had travelled. ' The
Canadian newcomers were so rude and overbearing in their
attitude to the older people of those regions that there was
every prospect the latter would rise in rebellion and try to
clear the new people out.' Hudson Bay men and old residents
were unanimous in holding this opinion.

They were right. Within two years from that time the
rebellion occurred. It was easily suppressed. It was the last
flicker of the old life. Henceforth there would be no prairies,
no Indians, no moccasins, no old stories told by camp fires ;
only barbed wire, the grain ' elevator,' the machine-made boot,
and the two-cent newspaper.

We reached Edmonton late on the night of the 12th Novem-
ber in a driving snow-storm. The winter was now well in,
and for the last three mornings the thermometer had been
below zero at daybreak.

CHAPTER XVI

The Hudson Bay forts. Winnipeg. Back to London. Trouble on the Upper
Nile. Revolt of the Mahdi. Destruction of the forces of Hicks Pasha and
Baker Pasha. General Gordon sent to the Soudan. Gordon and the
garrisons in danger. Delay and vacillation at home. Building of Nile
'whalers.' Ascent of the Nile.

Throughout the five hundred miles covered since I had crossed
to the north shore of the Saskatchewan at Carlton, the land,
with the exception of the establishment of Mr. Dickens's small
police party at Fort Pitt, was exactly as I had left it thirteen
years before.

At the Hudson Bay forts some ' old-timers ' had gathered —
old French Canadian or Scottish servants of the Company, who
had lived all their lives in the great wilderness, and now wished
to die in it. These old people had their memories for company,
and wonderful memories they were. Most, if not all of them,
had seen ghosts at some time in their lives. It might have been
when they were lying in camp, storm-bound, by the shores of
the distant Lake Athabasca ; it might have been during some
awful tramp of forty days and nights from Engewa to Esqui-
maux Bay in Labrador ; it might have been during a stay, all
alone, of a month in midwinter at La Pierre House on the
Upper Yukon, when the other white man had died, and there
had been no means of communicating the news of his death to
the next nearest white man, who lived three hundred miles
away on the Mackenzie River ; but ghosts the old men had
seen some time or other m those long years. If the younger
men hadn't themselves seen ghosts, they had heard their fathers
or grandfathers talk of them often enough over the log fire in
the winter evening. Years before in Red River I had heard
a quaint story of old Prudens and the wild goose — a goose story,
not a ghost story. One day in early spring, when the wild geese
were passing high over the prairies to their breeding grounds in
the Arctic, old Prudens in his farmyard on the Red River saw

THE OLD AND THE NEW 261

a ' wavy ' detach itself from the flock overhead, and, flying
downwards, ahght in the middle of his own domestic geese in
the yard. Orders were given that the newcomer was not to be
disturbed in any way. The ' wavy ' dwelt with his domestic
brethren in plenty aU that summer ; but when autumn came
the wail of the wild geese was heard again descending from the
V-shaped flocks that now were passing south to the swamp-
lands of the Mississippi. The call was more than the visitor
could resist ; for one morning he spread his wings and, soaring
aloft, rejoined his wild friends flying southwards. But, when
spring returned, so too came the ' wavy ' to take up his summer
station once more with the domestic cousins in the farmyard.
For half a dozen autumns and springs this curious visit was
repeated, until at last a springtime came but no ' wavy ' came
with it to gladden the eyes of old Prudens. When the last
flock had passed over, the old man said sorrowfully : ' He hasn't
come back : I shall die this winter.' And die he did, said the
story.

At Fort Victoria on this journey I met a young Mr. Prudens.
I asked him about his grandfather and the wild goose. Yes,
he had heard the story often told by the old people, he said,
perhaps it was only foolish talk ; but Dreever, my driver, didn't
think so. He liked these old stories better than the new ones
which had already come into the Saskatchewan in the form of
the ten-cent American novel — the Dime Illustrated. ' These
novels,' he once said to me, ' they don't do a man any good ;
he only loses his sleep by them.' I didn't know about that, but
I do know that I have learned more of the secret of life from
the stories of the Red Man, the old French fur-hunter, and the
old soldier, than ever I gathered from the pages of all the
up-to-date and sitting-up-at-night novels that were ever
written.

Despite the snowstorm and a temperature below zero at
Edmonton, I found that ' a boom ' had just passed over that
old Indian trading station ; and in this boom my recent
acquaintance, Johnny Prudens, had had a part. Prudens had
a farm near the fort. The Edmonton ' boom ' had been
started several hundreds of miles away, at Winnipeg, and
Edmonton knew nothing about it. Suddenly a telegram
arrived offering thirty thousand dollars for Prudens' farm.

262 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Prudens was away fur-trading at Lac La Biche. What is to
be done ? A messenger cannot be got at less than two hundred
dollars who will go in search of Prudens. Meanwhile, the
telegraph operator sees his way to a deal on his own account.
He and another partner start out to meet Prudens, and offer
him six thousand doUars for his farm. Prudens sells, knowing
nothing of the thirty thousand dollar limit. Then there is a
long delay before the deeds of sale can be prepared and the
money raised. At last this is effected, and all the parties
concerned go to Winnipeg to settle matters and pay the pur-
chase money. But by this time spring has come, and the boom
has subsided, the necessary dollars cannot be obtained ; the
operator has to put his recently acquired farm up for sale by
auction — the reserve price being fifteen thousand dollars ;
the audience burst into guffaws of laughter. Then twelve
thousand dollars are tried ; no answer. Finally a purchaser
is found at eight thousand dollars, less expenses. Wliat Prudens
eventually got out of the transaction was not stated ; but the
operator was glad to get back to his telegraph station the owner
of a new buckboard. At Edmonton I was on the borderland
again. Calgary, my rail destination, was only two hundred
miles to the south ; and boom and counter boom would hence-
forth form the staples of all conversation. How often I was to
hear the boom story repeated ; the first fixing of the new city
site ; the plans made out of square, corner lots, and market-
places ; the names given : ' Rapid City," ' Humboldt City,'
' Manchester City,' ' White Mud City,' etc., etc. Then I would
hear the story of the man who went in a buckboard to see for
himself the destined centre of civiHsation and progress which had
already arisen, it was said, in the wilderness ; how this man got
on the stump of a tree in the centre of ' Manchester City,' and
by springing on the stump had shaken the ' muskeg ' and quag-
mire swamp for two hundred yards all round his footing ; how
another man had taken his old German wife with him to
prospect ' Rapid City,' a site somewhere on the South Sas-
katchewan ; and how, when daylight had revealed the whole
sad spectacle to the old lady, she had burst into a torrent of
reproaches against her spouse, finishing up with imprecations
upon the head of Horace Greely, whose well-known advice to
the young men to ' go West ' had been the origin of aU her losses

SOUTHWARD 263

and disappointments. ' If I meet that old , I '11 give him

hell/ she would say.

I left Edmonton on the 14th November, travelling by horse-
sled due south. The snow was about eight inches deep, and we
sped along at a good pace over the same traU as that which I
had followed when going to the Rocky Mountain House in 1870.
Curiously enough, I had as driver the same excellent half-breed
who had been then my companion — Johnny Rowland — and,
to make the coincidence stranger, we met on the trail Paul
Foyale, who had also been with me on that occasion. On the
night of the 15th we reached the crossing place at Battle River,
where a Cree Indian, responding to the incoming civihsation,
had built himself a tiny hut of wood and mud on the bank above
the river. Coyote, the owner of the hut, was away hunting,
but his famUy, represented by a very old grandmother, a wife
and some children, were present. There was also a baby, four
days old, who, the old lady informed me, was her sixtieth
descendant then living. Except in the Egyptian Mummy
Museum at Boulak I had not seen a human face so deeply
wrinkled, nor hands so scraggy, nor nose so prominent ; yet
the hair was still jet black as it hung down in wisps on either
side of the gaunt cheeks. The baby's mother was at household
work ; and the old grandmother was alternately engaged in
holding the baby, and expelling a small black puppy dog,
whose work in the world was to roll over everji^hing on the floor
— threatening even to precipitate himself into the frying-pan
wherein our supper was being prepared.

We started from Coyote's at dayUght,and soon ran into lighter
snow, for a ' Chinnook wind ' was blowing, and when we reached
the Wolf creek the ground was so bare that the sleigh made bad
progress. Next morning, the snow being quite gone, we packed
our things on a loose horse, hid the sleigh in a thicket, himg up
the harness in a tree, and set out riding the other two horses
for the Red Deer River. Rowland rode bareback ; I had a
saddle borrowed from the Coyote family. It proved an
instrument of surpassing discomfort. Of Mexican origin, it
had undergone many changes at the Coyotes' hands. What-
ever had been capable of decay in it had gone, and only the hard
bone framework remained. It was so small that one had to
sit as much on the cantle as in the saddle. It was only a

264 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

question of time as to how long the agony could be borne.
After three hours of inexpressible pain, we reached the banks
of the Blindman's River, found a cart there, and with its aid
got on to the Red Deer River at dusk. ' I have found a new
instrument of human torture,' I wrote that night in my diary,
' in case civilisation reverts to the ancient practice — the
Coyote saddle.' Two days later I reached the railway at
Calgary, having passed on the second day from the mixed
wooded and plain country into a region entirely devoid of tree
or bush — a region which was one vast sea of short gray grass.
These last two daj^s were of easy locomotion, thanks to the
kindness of a Canadian gentleman named Beattie, who had
recently settled within the wooded region lying north of the
treeless waste.

Crossmg the Bow River at sunset, Mr, Beattie's waggon
narrowly escaped an accident. Ice was running in the river,
making it difficult for the four horses to keep their footing in
the strong current. One of the leaders fell and could not get
his legs again ; so it was necessary to cut him clear of the
harness. This was done by a smart J^oung fellow going out
over the backs of the wheelers, but he too had to get into the
water, and he was chilled to the marrow when we hauled him
again into the waggon.

It was dusk by the time we got across the Bow River, and
drew up at the Calgary House in what was then a small village.
The first thing was to get a drink of spirits for the half-drowned
man ; but, unfortunately, in Calgary the sale of aU intoxicants
was a crime punishable with heavy penalties. I took the hotel-
keeper aside and told him the case was an extreme one, and
the youth might easily die of cold and wet. We arranged a
compromise ; the hotel man would serve up tea all round for
our party, but in one cup he would put surreptitiously a glass
of the forbidden liquor. Not a word was to be said, for there
were police spies about, and discovery would be fatal to the
hotel. Half a dozen cups of tea soon came in on a tray. No
one said anything ; there was a profound silence as the tray
went round. I never knew exactly what happened, but the
only certain thing about the transaction was that the slip
between the cup that held the whisky and the lip for which it
was intended was complete. The half -drowned youth got only

' WITHIN SIGHT OF THE ROCKIES 265

the drink that cheered ; but who among our party received the
inebriating part of the beverage never transpired.

I left Calgary next morning by train for Winnipeg. For three
hours before sunset on the previous evening the Rocky Moim-
tains had been in sight to the west, and to the south one
could see over the level waste the smoke of railway locomotives
rising in tall, black columns above the clear prairie horizon.

That the difficulty in the case of the stimulant for the half-
frozen youth the previous evening had not been imaginary, a
look into the next carriage in our train showed. Two men of
the mounted police were there in irons on their way to prison.
Except for the irons, no one could have imagined that they were
prisoners ; the freest and easiest famiharity prevailed between
them, their escort, and the other passengers. They were ' in '
for having given information to certain liquor-sellers that a
police raid was being organised against them, and that fact
may have been accountable for the exhilarating effect which
the handcuffs appeared to exercise upon them. Anyway they
were jollity itself, and it was only the escorting constables who
looked sad and depressed.

At midnight the train reached Medicine Hat. While da}"-
light lasted not a tree or twig had broken the long monotony of
the waste ; even the grass had disappeared, and great dunes of
sand showed at intervals along the railway line, wind-blown
ridges mixed with patches of snow. But all day long the
wonderful snowy peaks showed weU above the prairie rim, and
when I looked my last towards the west over a vast expanse of
snow-covered plain, they still rose in an orange gloammg as
grand and lonely as when I had first set eyes upon them in the
days when the red man and the buffalo were almost the sole
denizens of this mightj^ waste.

As there was a delay of a couple of hours at Medicine Hat,
I entered a small wooden saloon oyster bar in search of food and
warmth, for it was miserably cold. A man came in shortly
after. I have heard a good deal of hard swearing in my day,
but never anything that approached the prodigious blasphemy''
of that Medicine Hat man. He particularly swore against
some place near Medicine Hat which he had left that day,
where the temperature was, he averred, with many impreca-
tions directed against anj^thing from a thermometer to an

266 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

oyster tin, exactly one hundred and ten degrees below zero.
If you were disposed to doubt or question the accuracy of that
reading of the thermometer, the alternative was like that
which Cromwell gave his Irish prisoners, only that Connaught
was left out.

I got to Winnipeg on 22nd November, and left it on the
25th. Our passage from a prohibition country into one of
free drinks was curiously coincident with what at first appeared
to me to betoken a tendency towards tooth-washing in the
travelling community such as I had not before met with in the
west. The tumbler on the washstand of the sleeping car was
in constant requisition. After a time, when at last I found it
in its proper place in the dressing-room, there was a strong
spirituous aroma about it which suggested the possibility of
its having been put to other uses than tooth-washing.

At Milwaukee I took advantage of a halt to look up my
good friend Bill Macauley at the station depot. I soon found
engine 218. Bill was burnishing his steed. I introduced
myself to him. ' Was you the man," he said, ' that telegraphed
the superintendent to ask my name ? ' ' Yes. What hap-
pened ? ' ' Wall, he came along one morning, and ses he :
" Bill, what game have you been up to ? " " Why, Boss ? "
ses I. " Cause," ses he, " there 's a chap up in St. Paul's
wiring down to know the name of the driver of your engine,
and saying he 's mightily obliged to you. What for ? " I
told him it must be the man I found lame on the track, and
that I just picked him up on my engine and caught the express
for him. " Well, Bill," ses he, " you mustn't do that again,
Bill." ' Then Bill told me that he was from Belfast ; came out
as a boy, was doing well, liked to give a hand to anybody that
needed it, and never gave a thought to it again. So we parted.

I reached London shortly before Christmas. Serious news
had been received from the Soudan. The profound stupor
which had fallen upon the peoples of the Nile valley one year
earlier had suddenly been broken by an ominous occurrence.
Hicks Pasha, an Anglo-Indian ofiicer, with some six or eight
English officers and ten thousand native soldiers and followers
(chiefly men of Arabi's old army, who had been sent in chains
to the Soudan in the winter of 1882) had been destroyed on
the march from the Upper Nile to Kordofan by a Nubian

SURPRISING NEWS FROM THE SOUDAN 267

Mohammedan Mahdi at the head of revolting tribes who had
flocked to his standard from all parts of the Soudan. This was
probably the last portion of the Empire from which news of
trouble was anticipated. Everybody had been talking so much
of the love borne to us by the peoples of the Nile valley that
we reaUy had come to think that Tel-el-Kebir had closed the
Egyptian question once and for all, and there was nothing more
to be done but to send half a dozen Englishmen into the heart
of the Soudan to ensure its easy occupation. The conquest of
Arabi had given the god Jingo a new start, and some among
his votaries were even disposed to regard John BuU as his
prophet — a profitable prophet, grateful and comforting to
everybody ; London, a modern Memphis, erecting statues to
its specially selected BuUs, and setting up the Golden Calf for
universal worship. Nevertheless, at this particular moment,
Christmas 1883, the inner councils of London presented a
strange picture of weakness and indecision.

The question of what had to be done in the Soudan could
have been decided in six hours by the same number of experi-
enced officers assembled at a round table. Whether the Soudan
was to be abandoned or retained required action in either case.
If the garrisons were to be withdrawn, the roads for retreat
must be kept open at any cost. If the revolt of the Mahdi
was to be suppressed, an army must be sent to do it, and which-
ever course was to be followed, no time must be lost. The
tide of revolt was rapidly rising in the Soudan, and the main
lines of retreat or of advance were certain to have their com-
munications interrupted by the increasing volume of the
revolt.

But if there was indecision in the governing mind in London,
the perplexity and weakness of the administrative powers in
Cairo were ten times more pronounced. At this very moment,
the 19th December, they were sending from Cairo to Suakim
on the Red Sea a wretched force of three thousand six hundred
nondescript men with six guns, under Baker Pasha (whom we
last met at the tombs of the Bulls). The composition of this
absurd expedition, and the commission given to its commander,
are to-day accurate measures by which judgment can be formed
upon the foresight and ability of the English administration
then in power in Cairo.

268 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Baker Pasha was ' to have supreme civil and mihtary com-
mand in all parts of the Soudan which might be reached by
his forces/ He was commissioned ' to pacify the country
between Suakim and Berber (two hundred and forty miles) ;
but was only to resort to force after all other means of con-
ciliation had failed/ It wiU be sufficient to say that, three
days after landing, he advanced three miles from the shore
with his three thousand men ; met a body of ' about twelve
hundred ' Arabs, armed with swords and spears ; his forces
were almost entirely annihilated in a few minutes, leavmg in
the hands of the Henandoa Arabs three thousand rifles, six
cannon, all their baggage, ammunition, and clothing. An eye-
witness thus described the scene : ' Cavalry, infantry, mules,
camels, falling baggage and dying men, crushed into astruggling,
surging mass. The Egyptians were shrieking madly, hardly
attempting to run away, but trying to shelter themselves one
behind another.' Baker Pasha and his officers did what
they could to stay the rout ; then they galloped for the
shore.

Even this disaster does not appear to have awakened the
governing minds in Cairo and London to a sense of the real
situation in the Soudan. That is the curse which invariably
attends upon the fool's paradise of ' Make-believe.' I went
frequently to London in these days, but saw nowhere any sign
of preparation nor heard any rumours showing that there was
the shghtest realisation of the true state of matters existing
in the Soudan. On 18th January 1884, General Gordon, as
everybody knows, was despatched at one day's notice to
Khartoum, with one other officer, his mission being to bring
away the garrisons and to establish settled government in the
Soudan. Seven weeks had then passed since the news of Hicks'
disaster had been received. Could human fatuity have reached
a deeper point ? A week after Gordon's departure, I received
at Devonport a summons to attend the War Office. I made
sure the order meant something for the Nile, and I was never
more disappointed than when I found it was only a confidential
civU mission to the Government of Canada, the land I had just
returned from. I made it a rule of life to take any service
that was offered, and never to ask for anything except active
service. In the present instance, it happened that the mission

CONFUSION AT HEADQUARTERS 269

to Canada which I was now asked to undertake had been
accepted by Colonel Stewart of the 11th Hussars, but his sudden
departure with General Gordon for Khartoum made it neces-
sary to get another officer for Canada, and I had been selected
for the service. I sailed from Liverpool the first week in
February, had a fifteen day voj^age of exceptional severity
even for that season of the year, and in the course of the
following six weeks saw a good deal of the Canadian administra-
tion. Lord Lansdowne was then the governor-general, newly
arrived, and the veteran Sir John Macdonald the premier
of the Dominion. Early in April I was back in London, and
it was possible to take up Soudan affairs again.

There was little change in the situation. Unparalleled
vacillation of purpose had continued to mark the whole conduct
of affairs ; telegrams were flying between Cairo and London ;
expeditions were sent to the Red Sea littoral, only to be recalled
after a lot of useless slaughter had occurred. It is difficult to
go back now after these twenty-five long years are gone, and
to read again the official records and diaries of that time, the
real truth of which still remains untold and unacknowledged.
What was the meaning of all this beating of the air, these masses
of useless verbiage, these opinions and counter-opinions, these
short marchings out and marchings back again, in which eight
long months were wholly wasted at a time when every hour
of every day was precious to us ? Let us see whether now,
with the experience of the intervening years, and the recollec-
tions of my personal share in the work of the months following
my return from Canada, I can put together some tangible
theory of that fatal interval. Three salient factors have to
be dealt with in the matter — the man Gordon, the men who
held in their hands his fate, and the physical, military, and
economic situation of Khartoum at the time.

Readers of General Gordon's life will remember that he
spent the greater part of the year 1883 in Palestine, where he
was engaged in visiting the sites identified with the history
of the Old and New Testaments. How Httle his mind con-
cerned itself with the affairs of Egypt those who have read
the voluminous letters written by him from Palestme, and pub-
lished by his sister. Miss Gordon, will not need to be reminded ;
but to the agents and servants of the Egyptian bondholders

270 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the presence in Palestine of their great antagonist could only
appear as a menace to their designs upon Egypt.

So far for the man Gordon. Let us turn to the actual position
at Khartoum immediately after Gordon arrived there. From
the first day of his arrival, the strategic position was almost a
hopeless one. From one end of the Soudan to the other the
Mahdi was triumphant. All the garrisons, which it was the
particular mission of Gordon to relieve and withdraw, were
sealed up within their dozen towns, hundreds of miles apart,
unable to hold any communication with each other or with
Khartoum : even this place was menaced. Weeks before
Gordon reached Khartoum, despairing messages had been
received from it in Cairo along the thin thread of the telegraph,
which was now the sole frail link that remained between Egypt
and the Soudan, Dongola was doubtful ; Suakim on the Red
Sea was menaced. The line Khartoum — Berber — Abu Hamad
— Korosko — Assouan formed the only route by which com-
munication was possible, and formed a route, too, along which
it was easy to maintain communication. It would not have
cost England or Egypt twenty thousand pounds to make that
road as secure against the Mahdi as was the remainder of the
line from Assouan to Cairo. Only two places on the six
hundred miles between Korosko and Khartoum required looking
to : Berber, two hundred miles north of Khartoum, and Abu
Hamad, three hundred and thirty-seven miles from it. From
Abu Hamad to Korosko the desert was Egypt's. I do not
think that in the whole range of modern military history another
such example of stupidity can be found to equal the omission
on the part of the governing authorities in Cairo to secure the
route Korosko to Khartoum after General Gordon had passed
along it to his destination. At whose door that responsibility
should rest I have still no means of deciding ; but when I read
again, after the lapse of more than twenty years, the voluminous
despatches and telegrams which cover the momentous months
between January and May 1884, all the old wonder I used to
experience at that terrible omission comes back, and I ask
myself afresh what were all these ministers, agents, generals,
sirdars, and high functionaries in Cairo dreaming of when they
allowed that single door of relief and communication to be
closed upon the man we had sent so glibly to his fate ? It

CONFLICTING COUNSELS 271

was so easy to keep the door open ; two thousand men
sent to Berber via Korosko and Abu Hamad would have
sufficed. Berber was only a three- weeks' journey from Cairo
via Korosko ; it would have cost twenty thousand pounds.
From the day Gordon passed Abu Hamad on his way to
Khartoum, until the fall of Berber sealed his fate, there elapsed
a period of about sixty days. During that interval the
various military and civil authorities in Cairo were exercising
their minds in planning costly expeditions to Suakim, which
were as remote from the possibility of reaching Berber, under
the conditions then existing between that place and Suakim,
as they were from effecting the occupation of Timbuctoo.
Nay, they were even rendering the problem of communicating
with Khartoum by any road increasingly difficult on every side.
Writing in his celebrated Khartoum journal on 22nd Sep-
tember 1884, Gordon has entered remarkable words. He quotes
the Mudir of Dongola's observation to him in March that the
authorities in Cairo seemed desirous of ' riveting the tomb-
stone over Khartoum." And again, four days later, he writes
on 26th September : ' It is a curious fact that any effort to
relieve the garrisons is contemporaneous with the expiration
of the period stated in March regarding the time they could
hold out, viz. six months. There are some ugly suspicious
circumstances all the way through.' Undoubtedly there were,
but I have never been able, then or now, when five-and-twenty
years have gone, to say where the ugly suspicious circumstances
ended, and the dense stupidities began. My own personal
reading now of the events of the time is, that there was only
one man then in authority to whom the fate of Charles Gordon
in Khartoum was a real, tangible, ever-present anxiety — that
man was Lord Wolseley, With him I had many interviews
after my return in April 1884 from my second visit to Canada,
and we discussed at length the various routes by which Khar-
toum could be reached by troops. By men who knew what
had been done on the Red River Expedition in 1870, the
practicability of ascending the Nile in boats such as those used
to reach Fort Garry could not be doubted ; but we were only
a small band against the many military competitors in Cairo
who now came forward with proposals for expeditions on their
own account to the Soudan.

272 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

What struck one most about these proposals was the fact
that the mam point in the problem was almost invariably left
out of the calculation — time. It would have been possible to
get into the Soudan from any part of the coast of Africa if
time had been of no importance ; but how was the relief
of Gordon to be accomplished by an English force in the
interval of the few months still remaining to the garrison of
Khartoum before starvation would compel it to surrender ?
The cruel part of the proceeding was that this war of the
ways enabled the Government of the day to postpone the
means by which alone relief could be effected. Through May,
June, and July the talk of relief went on, but not one effort
was made to give money.

At last, late on the 4th August, I received a telegram from
Lord Wolseley, who was then the adjutant-general of the War
Office. It merely said : ' I want to see you here to-morrow.'
Of course, I guessed what it meant. The Nile route had been
selected for the attempt to reach Khartoum. Next morning
I was in PaU Mall, but only to find that the final word had not
been spoken by the Government. Even at this eleventh hour
aU that could be said was : ' We have it in contemplation to
despatch a strong brigade of British troops to or towards
Dongola by the Nile route. Proceed at once to find four
hundred boats similar to those used in the Red River Expedi-
tion. If you cannot find such boats, you will have to build
them.'

Another officer, a comrade of the Red River, Colonel AUej-ne,
R.A., was joined with me in this belated search. A bundle of
papers was handed to us, but the purport of these we knew only
too well, and a hansom cab was more to our purpose than aU
the tons of writing at the moment on the tables of the War
Office. We laid our plans on the 5th, and by the evening of
the 6th August two things were clear : not in England could
be found four hundred new, sound boats fit for the work they
would have to do ; build them we must. In the bundle of
War Office papers handed to us was one in which the Admiralty
had declared that the construction of four hundred boats
would take from two to three months. I had been too long
as a fly on the great wheel of English officiaUsm not to know
something about the limits of time or cost given by our great

A TRIAL NILE BOAT 273

spending departments in cases such as this. The difference
between private and public enterprise in England in all these
matters can be measured by the difference between an express
train and a parliamentary one. With only the aid of a hansom
cab, we found that some Lambeth boatbuilders would build
boats for us within four weeks from the date on which they got
the order. If there was one boatbuilder on the Lambeth
wharves who would give us five boats in four weeks, surely aU
England could supply the remaining three hundred and ninety-
five in the same period.

The next things to decide were the shape, size, and weight
of the boat. This we did at Portsmouth on the 7th August.
We got together in the dockyard the load the boat would have
to carry — biscuit, preserved meat, groceries, tent, arms,
ammunition sufficient for twelve men during one hundred days.
We put the load with twelve men into a man-of-war gig in the
basin, found that load was too heavy for the boat, and the
boat too heavy for the work we wanted ; and then and there
we laid the luies of our new, ideal Nile ' whaler.' She was to
be thirty feet in length, six feet six inches in beam, two feet
three inches in depth ; to weigh, with fittings complete, about
one thousand pounds. I have told the story of these boats in
the Campaign of the Cataracts, and must now press on to the
long road we have before us. It will be enough to saj^ that,
before any official sanction could be given to spend a five-
pound note on this work, we had designs, specifications,
dimensions, all finished ; a trial boat actually being built at
Portsmouth in one week ; cargo ' found,' as the Official History
of the Soudan Caynpaign says, ' to answer admirabl}' ' ; and,
by the evening of the 11th August, we were satisfied that,
once the Government sanction was given, we could, by ' touch-
ing the button,' set forty-seven boatbuilding firms at work
from Peterhead round the English coast to Liverpool.

At last, late in the afternoon of 12th August, a war official
came to the temporary office in which I was working to summon
me to the office of a high parliamentary Government official.
I found there several heads of the contract and finance depart-
ments.

The parliamentary official began by observing that he under-
stood I had been charged with inquiries and arrangements as

s

274 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

to boatbuilding on an extensive scale. I answered that that
was so ; that our work of design, preparation, and inquiries
had for some days been finished ; and that we only awaited
the word ' go ' to proceed to immediate action. Then there
came a shght pause, broken by the high ofl&cial asking in a
doubtful tone if I really thought those four hundred boats
could be buUt and shipped from England in the time he had
seen stated in a paper of mine — one month ? I answered that
I had not much doubt of the general correctness of that esti-
mate. Then came another Uttle pause, followed by the
official's writing a few words upon a half-sheet of notepaper,
which he handed to me. I read, ' Colonel Butler, you may
proceed with the construction of four hundred boats.' That
was good, but his next spoken words were better : * Gentle-
men,' he said, turning to the representatives of the depart-
ments of finance, contracts, and control, ' I have assembled
you here to tell you that Colonel Butler has a blank cheque
for the building and equipment of these boats, and his decisions
as to expenditure are not to be questioned.'

I bowed and retired. That evening forty-seven telegrams
to forty-seven boatbuilders went out. The Nile Expedition
had begun. But what a cloud hung over it ! Turn it in one's
mind in any way, the problem came back to the same point —
the 12th of August ! How easy it would all have been had
this decision been given two months earlier !

The whole tone and temper of the Government came out
in the despatch which was sent at this time to Egypt by the
Secretary of State for War. There are passages in that docu-
ment which literally take one's breath away when we read
them to-day. This :

' Her Majesty's Government are not at present convinced that it
will be impossible for General Gordon, acting on the instructions he
has received, to secure the withdrawal from Khartoum, either by
the employment of force or of pacific means, of the Egyptian
garrison, and of such of the inhabitants as may desire to leave.'

And this :

' Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that the time has
arrived when some further measures for obtaining accurate informa-
tion as to his (Gordon's) position, and, if necessary, for rendering
him assistance, should be adopted.'

OBSTRUCTION 275

And this :

' Her Majesty's Government have therefore come to the con-
clusion that the best mode in which they can place themselves in a
position to undertake the relief of General Gordon, should the
necessity arise, would be by the provision of means by which such
an expedition could be despatched to Dongola, and, as circumstances
at the time may render expedient, to Berber and Khartoum.'

And this :

' This movement could, in the opinion of the Government, scarcely
fail in the first instance to afford the means of obtaining full and
accurate information as to the position and intentions of General
Gordon, and it is probable that such a demonstration would in itself
be sufiicient to strengthen his position, and to secure the co-operation
of the tribes which have not joined the movement of the Mahdi,
to such an extent as to enable General Gordon to secure the principal
object of his mission.'

I think the despatch from which these passages are taken
stands absolutely without a parallel in history ; the force of
fiction, make-believe, and pretence could go no further. One
can realise, too, from this despatch the forces that were against
us in the expedition now beginning. The permanent Govern-
ment, that is to say, the vast army of under-secretaries,
assistant imder-secretaries, chief clerks and their assistants,
were opposed to us. The temporary Government, i.e. the
ministers of the time, were at best lukewarm in support of this
half still-bom child of theirs. Perhaps of both it might have
been said that they were more passive than active in their
attitude towards us, but even that means much where the
balance between failure and success is in even pause of poise.
The London press were strongly against us, but, worse than
all, British Cairo, civil and military, were to a man against
us. Every general who had his own pet plan for going to
Khartoum had the same reasons for not liking our methods
of going there as the French marshals in Spain had for look-
ing with no friendly eye upon each other's operations in the
Peninsula.

As for the attitude of the civil Government, the point need
not be laboured ; the telegrams exchanged between Khartoum
and Cairo tell their own story.

276 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

From the 12th August, when official sanction was given,
the work of boat preparation went on night and day ; and so
well did the contractors keep their appointed times that,
within the time specified in my original promise, the whole
four hundred boats were dehvered, put on board of eleven ships,
and the ships had actually sailed for Egypt. Nearly one
hundred boats were clear out of England twenty-seven days
after the orders to build them had gone out. Four thousand
tons of food had gone forward to Egypt in the same time.

I reached Cairo early on 25th September, and went straight
to the Boulak railway station to see some sixty of our boats
pass by on the railway waggons to Assiout. That morning
one hundred of them passed the station, not a boat damaged
or a plank stirred. They were due to arrive at Assiout next
night. So far we were a full week ahead of our estimate of
time, but now came a check from a quarter least expected.
On the 'preceding night the Egyptian army officials had sent eighty
waggons loaded with beans, lentils, and butter from Cairo along
this route to Assiout, thereby blocking all access of our boats to the
Nile for three whole days. When I reached Assiout on 1st October
the_..;block had just ceased. I had been hoarding the days
gained as a miser hoards gold, and now half my gains had
gone through this action of the Egyptian army. I went to
the telegraph office and wired the chief of the staff at Wady
Haifa :—

' Three days lost through action of E.A. officials. Would it not be
better to send the Egyptian army back to the beans and lentils,
than to send the beans and lentils forward to the Egyptian army ? '

I got to Assouan at daylight on 7th October. At noon
thirty-two of our boats arrived there ; that evening we
anchored them at the foot of the First Cataract, and next
morning the ascent of the cataract began. It was to be the
first important test of the planks of the boats to overcome a
Nile rapid. The prophecies of failure had been many. It
will suffice to say that, when evening came, thirty-two boats
were at the head of the cataract anchored opposite Philae,
not one having suffered the smallest injury m the ascent. Then
on to Wadi Haifa. The boats were now arriving hand over
hand, and on 18th October one hundred and thirty of them

WASTE OF PRECIOUS TIME 277

were at the foot of the Second Cataract. Here, again, the plan
was marred by that worst of all combinations — the men who
won't see and the men who don't see. They were in high
place, and I was powerless against their ruling. At this
point that ruling was destined eventually to kiU the expedi-
tion. The order was given that the EngUsh boats, now
numbering one hundred and thirty, were to remain idly
at anchor at the foot of the Second Cataract, while some
sixty or seventy heavy native craft were to have the
right-of-way through the Bab-el-Kebir (the Big Gate of
the Cataract). This decision cost us a loss of ten darjs. We
had, in fact, been doing too well up to this point. It was
but seven weeks since these boats had their keels laid in Ensr-
land, and here we had over one hundred of them one thousand
miles up the Nile, and the remainder were coming on in quick
succession. The Second Cataract of the Xile has lived in my
memorj' since October 1884 as a spot in the world where I
suffered mental torture of the acutest kind — that which results
from seeing terrible disaster ahead and being powerless to
prevent it. The essence of the problem which this expedition
had to solve was a simple one. We cannot afford to lose one
hour ; we are two months too late at this work ; it is a race
against famine ; there is still a certain margin of time left ;
in what manner can that narrow balance be best used ? What
is the earliest date at which a brigade of British infantrj- can be
assembled at Korti on the Nile, readj^ to march across the two
hundred miles of Bayuda desert to the Nile again at Metemmeh,
a place within one hundred miles of Khartoum ? Korti was
distant from the Second Cataract three hundred and thirty
miles. The first hundred of these miles held eight cataracts
or rapids, aU of them combined forming, in the opinion of
Commander Hamill, the same amount of obstruction to naviga-
tion as the Second Cataract offered in its total of nine miles.
There were thus three hundred and ten to three hundred and
twenty miles of good water, and nearly twenty of cataract
and rapid between the two places. Now there was no difficulty
whatever in taking our boats, light, in fifteen days from the
head of the Second Cataract to Korti. I did the journey myself
in that time travelling light. If we allowed double time, or,
say, even thirty -five days, for boats carrying their full loads

278 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of one hundred days' food for the men, it was quite possible
to have placed at Korti a daily average of two hundred British
soldiers in twenty boats, each boat having on arrival at Korti
sixty-five days' food and three hundred rounds of ammunition
per man. To replace at Korti the thirty-five days' food eaten
out on the upward journey, it was only necessary to have added
four extra boats to every unit of twenty boats. These four
extras would have returned empty from Korti, their surplus
cargoes enabling the two hundred men to have their food com-
pleted for one himdred days onward. This simple plan would
have resulted in assembling at Korti, by a date which I shall
presently deal with, five thousand men ready to march across
the one hundred and eight miles to Metemmeh.

Now, remember that we had one hundred and thirty of our
' whalers ' at Wady Haifa, below the Second Cataract, on
18th October, fifty of them on 14th October. It took three
days to pass boats to the head of the Cataract. Had we been
allowed to begin passing them up on the 18th October at the
rate of even thirty a day (we did fifty a day easily later), we
should undoubtedly have been able to have the first batch of
twenty-four ready to embark their crews and supplies on the
23rd October. Thirty-five days later, viz, on the 27th Novem-
ber, this unit of twenty-four boats would have been at Korti ;
every day after the 27th November would have seen two
hundred men landed there, with one hundred days' food,
ammunition, tents, etc., etc., complete. To collect five
thousand men at Korti would have required twenty-five days
from the 27th November, so that on the 22nd December the
last of the force could have started from Korti to Metemmeh, the
advanced portion of it, say three thousand men, having left
that place fourteen days earlier, on the 8th December.

Fifteen days later, viz. on the 23rd December, these three
thousand men could have been at Metemmeh, within one
hundred miles of Khartoum ; they would have met at Met-
emmeh Gordon's four steamers ; and the same journey which
Sir Charles Wilson made one month later would have been
accomplished with the advantages of a higher Nile level,
Khartoum still held by Gordon, and the fact that another
two thousand troops were marching from Korti to their aid.

Let us turn now to what this march across the desert would

A LOST OPPORTUNITY 279

have needed. That too was a simple matter. It would have
required five thousand camels carrying the kits, food, water,
blankets and ammunition for these five thousand men. Water
for seven days only need have been carried, as at Gakdul the
tanks and water-skins would have been refilled. Water,
100 lbs. ; food for thirty days, 90 lbs. ; ammunition (200
rounds), 10 lbs. ; kit, 20 lbs., leaving a good 150 lbs. available
on each camel for reserves of food, hospital comforts, ammuni-
tion, etc. One camel-driver to every three camels.

This plan would have enabled some six hundred thousand
pounds of food-stuffs to have been carried across with the
infantry to the Nile at Metemmeh ; more than half the camels
would have then been available to return to Gakdul and Korti
to assist the carrying over of other supplies and the accumula-
tion of reserves of all kinds at Metemmeh, which would be the
new base for the forward movement on Khartoum by the left
bank of the Nile.

This final advance would have had Gordon's four steamers
to accompany it on the Nile. Omdurman was held by Gordon
until the 15th January. Allowing ten days for this final
advance upon Kiiartoum, and a halt of three to five days at
Metemmeh for the arrival of the two thousand infantry there,
the united column of five thousand men would have been
before Omdurman on or about the 6th of January.

Of course it can never be known if the arrival of that force
would have stiU saved Khartoum on that date. It fell to
the Mahdi twenty days later, as we know ; but famine was
then the chief if not the only cause of the disaster, and it had
only become acute during the week previous to the faU.

A word as to this march across the desert. The Bayuda
is not a desert in the sense of the deserts of Nubia and Egypt ;
it has vegetation, and its surface is hard and, generally speaking,
good for marching. The season of the year was most favour-
able, and, above all, in physique and strength the men were
perfect ; the six weeks' pulHng at the oar, tugging at the
track-lmes, and ' portaging ' had made them hard as nails
and fit for any work. The passage of the Bayuda, with kits
and baggage, etc., carried on camels, would have been child's
play to such men. If the papers of that anxious time, between
the 18th October and the 20th December 1884, are still preserved

280 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

in the records of the War Office, there will be found in them
many telegrams and memos from me urging those who had then
the executive management of the expedition in their hands
to the adoption of methods of loading, movement, and progress
of our boats very different from those which had then been
ordained and accepted.

Nevertheless, although we had lost by the end of October a
full fortnight out of these precious days hitherto saved in
the estimate of time given in London on 10th August, there
was still time, as subsequent events proved, to have reached
the Nile at Metemmeh as sketched above, if even on this
first day of November other counsels had prevailed at Wady
Haifa, and our boats had not had imposed upon them a load
of over half a ton in weight more than that which they had been
designed to carry. These extra twelve hundred pounds were
destined to lose us another ten or a dozen days on the passage
to Korti.

I must pass on from the thought of that horrible time. It
was one long, unbroken nightmare to me.

CHAPTER XVII

Delays on the Nile. Success of the ' whalers.' Letters. Korti. The Desert
column. Fall of Khartoum. The River column. Kirbekan. News of
Gordon's death.

Lord Wolseley left Wady Haifa for Dongola in the end of
October, in the hope, I think, that the confusion existing at
the former place would tend to diminish, through its com-
ponent parts being drawn off up the river after him, but this
result did not follow. Things became more congested and
confused at Wady Haifa. No dominant mind, no far-seeing
eye remained there. The rival interests and ambitions in
staff and in command which had done so much harm in Cairo
during the six preceding months had now again an opportunity
of showing themselves, and I think that I am well within the
truth when I say that to this cause must be ascribed the loss
of another week, or perhaps ten days, in the steady and con-
tinuous flow of the troops up the river. Our boats came on
up the Second Cataract in ever-increasing numbers ; by the
middle of November we had despatched one hundred and thirty
of them with thirteen hundred troops, and seventy more with
food and ammunition, for Dongola, and we had another two
hundred boats, fitted and made ready to the last pin, waiting
to embark at Gemai, at the head of the Second Cataract,
their two thousand more men. But these two thousand men
were still far down the river at and below Assouan. During
the seventeen days following the 6th November, only fifteen
weak companies of infantry were ready for embarkation at
Gemai.

On 16th November Lord Wolseley came tearing down from
Dongola, doing his fifty miles a day on a camel. I met him at
two in the 'morning at Gemai. What had happened ? Why
were not the troops moving up in greater numbers ? Whj;'
were the companies that had already embarked not doing

281

282 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

quicker work in the ascent of the river ? These and other
questions he asked me while the train at Gemai was halting,
taking water. I could only speak of my own part in this great
work. He was bound for Wady Haifa and would there see
for himself. We had sent off two hundred boats ; we had
two hundred more lying idle waiting for troops sixty yards from
where we were talking. As for their progress, it was no wonder
their work had been slow in the rapids ; they were carrying
twenty-one days* more food than the load they had been
designed and buUt to carry. I had protested that this load
was excessi-ve, but I could do no more. I found at Haifa I had
ceased to stand where I did from the first inception of the
enterprise in London up to the day — the fatal day — that Lord
Wolseley had left Haifa for Dongola.

Next morning, the 17th November, I started up river to
hasten the boats in their ascent. In five days, working from
dawn to dark, I reached Sarkamatto, at the head of the great
Dal Cataract, over ninety miles of the worst water on the Nile,
including the cataracts of Semneh, Ambigole, Tanjour, Akasha
and Dal. These five days had revealed to me the physical
causes of the slow ascent of our boats over these river obstacles,
and in addition had laid bare a good deal of the moral obstruc-
tions to our progress. At all the stations on the banks where
garrisons of the Egyptian army had been placed, with the ex-
ception of Semneh, the favourable or friendly mind was con-
spicuous by its absence. In the ranks of the Egyptian army
our boat expedition had few friends, nor was this matter for
much wonder when the history of the previous six months
was taken into account. The Egyptian army of that time
was, in its English officers, as strong in ambition as its rank
and file were weak in striking power. From Sirdar to junior
English subaltern, its officers were as the dogs of war straining
on the leash. In the conflict of routes, the one by the Nile
had been the peculiar perquisite of the Egyptian army, and
portions of that force had been gradually moving up the Nile
since December 1883. These units were now — November
1884 — echeloned along the river at various points between
the Second and Third Cataracts to the number of about three
thousand men, and they had to be fed, camped, and generally
supplied by the river route. It was for this supply service

MORE OBSTRUCTION 283

that the heavy native craft had been passed through the
Second Cataract in the end of October, keeping back our
English boats, and losing us, as I have said, a full fortnight
of our precious time ; and all for nothing, as the event proved,
for almost the whole of this native craft to which right-of-way
had been given became wrecks, either in the Second Cataract
or in the succeeding rapids through which I had just passed.
The shores of the Nile below Semneh were literally lined with
these wrecks. The course that was pursued with regard to
the Egyptian army seemed to me to be the worst of three
possible alternatives : first, they might have been withdrawn
altogether to Lower Egypt, thereby relieving the strain of
transport by thirty per cent, and leaving our road clear ; second,
they might have been pushed on to Dongola, marching by the
right bank of the Nile, and at Dongola they could have lived
on that province ; and, third, they might be left, as they were
left, between the Second and Third Cataracts, to lessen our
supplies, block our way, and be all but useless to us in any way.
The first course would have left the Egyptian army officers
with a grievance, but it would have meant for us a clear road
to our destination. The second course would have had the
great advantage of making the Egyptian officers willing rivals
in this enterprise ; the third and adopted course not only
kept the grievance intact, but it added fully twenty per cent.
to the innumerable difficulties which we had to face and over-
come. There was yet another alternative possible : it was
to have sent the Egj'ptian army to Suakim, and with three
or four battahons of British troops from India, let it hammer
away at the Dervishes under Osman Digna from that side,
and endeavour to open the road to Berber, If it failed, no
great harm would have been done ; if it succeeded, the gain
to the general stock of the effort to save Gordon and Khartoum
would have been very great.

At Dal on the 21st November I had realised that, under the
existing conditions of affairs, the prospects of reaching Gordon
in time had already become terribly doubtful. I wired back
to Haifa a list of the things that seemed to me to demand the
quickest measures of reform, and then I pushed on for the
head of the Third Cataract, with the intention of getting into
direct touch with Lord Wolseley, and laying my accumulated

284 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

knowledge before him. Working, as before, from early light
to dusk, I reached the head of the Third Cataract on the 27th
November, having averaged twenty miles a day, cataracts,
rapids, and aU included. But the telegraph had beaten me,
notwithstanding all my haste. I was about to experience at
the head of the Third Cataract what was perhaps the cruellest
check of all my life. I knew the whole thing now. It was the
last hour in the chances still left to us of saving Gordon. This
was the 28th November. No boat save mine had yet passed
this Third Cataract. Why ? Because three weeks had been
thrown away in the starting of the boats ; because, even at
this eleventh hour, our boats were loaded up to their gunwales
and down to the water's edge with cargo largely in excess of
their rightful loads ; because, as yet, the work was being done
under the benumbing influence of aU the doubt and distrust
in the possibility of our EngHsh boats overcoming the diffi-
culties of this long river ascent, which the six months' fight
between the Army Councillors in Cairo had long since made
the common property of the officers and men of the rival
armies in Egy]pt.

Instead of being taken at once as the sole means of reaching
in time, and with sufficient force, the destination for which we
were bound, our boats had been grudgingly accepted by the
various chiefs, staffs, and departments as things which had to
prove their fitness for the task before any one would believe
in them. Hence there had grown up the thousand queries
and the querulousness which, in an enterprise such as this
we were engaged upon, meant a lot of lost power in every
day's work and in most men's individual efforts ; the horrible
' What is the use ? ' and * Why is this last hour asked of us ? '
which knock off from every hour some moments and from the
day's work a few miles. Oh, how I gnashed my teeth at this
apathy, as in that upward journey of ten days, through cataract,
whirlpool, and rapid, I saw it, heard it, and felt it in heart
and soul ; at military station, on sandbank ; in the lifting of
a biscuit-box ; in the halt or the start ; until at last, by the
sheer dumb proof which the boats were themselves giving of
their capacity to their captains and their crews, belief in them
grew stronger, and many ceased at length to doubt, ' crab,'
and grumble. But the moment of their admitted triumph

A REBUFF AT HAFIR 285

had not yet arrived, and already the sands in the hour-glass
of possible success were running very, very low. I have said
that I was beaten by the telegraph. It was in this way. I
firmly believed that if I could get to Lord Wolseley for even
one hour, I should have little difficulty m showing him the
exact state of matters over all the two hundred and twentj''
miles between Dongola and Wady Haifa. I was not at that
moment aware of the contents of the letter he had received
at Wady Haifa on the 18th November from Gordon, dated
Khartoum, 4th November, but I knew that Khartoum was
hard pressed by foes without and want of food within, and I
was as certain as man can be that with our boats, and in the
food they carried, lay the only chance we had of arriving in
time to save the town. There was no use ui deploring the
time already lost, but to get the last mile of distance for our
boats out of every remaining day, and save the first and last
glint of daylight for our work m the time that yet remained
to us, did seem to me an object worth every risk that could be
run to win it. It was in this effort that the telegraph beat me.
It had been at work from Wady Haifa to Dongola. It was
decreed that I was not to pass beyond the head of the Third
Cataract ! I was not to see the commander-in-chief ! I must
go back to Dal ! What I wrote that afternoon in m}^ boat in
the middle of the Nile, somewhere in the broad water below
the isle of Argo, I could not now recall, but I remember that my
pencil flew over the blank backs of some nine or ten large
Egj^tian telegraph forms, as no pen or pencil of mine ever
went before or since. I handed the packet of tissue sheets
to the messenger to give to Lord Wolseley in Dongola, and
then turned down-stream with, I think, the heaviest heart and
saddest brain I had ever known in my life.

When evening came, I put into the village of Mochi and
began to write again : —

' You have knc^Ti me long enough to know that disregard of
orders, much less disregard of your orders, is not my line of conduct,
but I would have thought that there was enough in the past to show
that when you set me a task it was best to let me work it in my own
way. Had you tied me do^vn six years ago on the Red River you
would not have known at Fort Francis that the Winnipeg River
was only a week's work for the expedition, and the men would

286 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

have been committed to the swamps of the north-west angle of the
Lake of the Woods as all the experts and others, save myself,
counselled and advised. Again, if 3'^ou had not given me my own
head in Ashanti eleven years ago, you would have had ten thousand
more fighting men arrayed against you at a very critical moment
in the battle of Amoaful ; and, coming down to our work of yester-
day and to-day, was it not through your letting me work this boat
idea from the beginning on my own lines that you have at the
present moment six hundred boats ready above the Second Cataract,
that I have one above the Third Cataract, and that there might
have been fifty above it to-day had the old order of time and despatch
of troops been adhered to ? and that all this had been done within
the hmit of time, please remember, which the highest naval authori-
ties in England had declared would be required for only building
the boats in England. I go back over the past and speak of the
present work now only because your words and actions to-day
have forced these recollections upon me. It had never entered
my head for a moment to remain more than a few hours in Dongola.
I should have gone down the river again in a very diflPerent position
and armed with a very different authority from that which I shall
now do ; not that I shall not use every effort, sparing myself in no
way to effect the more rapid movement up river ; but my words
will not be heard in the noise of the slap in the face I have been given
to-day, the sound of which will be grateful to many to whom I am
distasteful because I have been identified with this expedition by
ceaselessly furthering its interests. I freely admit that the ortho-
dox EngHsh staff officer would have stopped at Hafir to-day, to-
morrow, and the day after, eyeglass in eye and cigarette in mouth ;
but, on the other hand, he would have taken sixteen to eighteen
days to ascend the river from Sarras to Hafir, and when acting on
your orders to go back on the seventeenth or nineteenth day to
try and galvanise the slow moving mass of boats into quicker
work, his words would have had about as much effect upon Tommy
Atkins as his cigarette smoke would have had in dulling the
Egyptian sky. Unfortunately perhaps for me, these were not my
methods of work ; and I fear they never a\ ill be. I realised from
the first that w^e were dealing with a lot of unwilliug horses at these
Nile fences, and that the only chance of getting them quickly over
the water-jumps was to give them a lead over.'

Then I set down again the many things that had tended
and were tending to delay us — the loads, greater than those
first intended, and double those carried on the Red River ;

Ul^VILLING HANDS 287

the mistake of having increased the boat-loads and decreased
the number of men per boat, thereby reducing the Hve motive-
power and adding to the dead weight in every boat, and all
this following upon a clear loss of ten to fifteen days in starting
from the Second Cataract. But above all these things com-
bined I put the moral factor, the impression engendered
originally in the minds of the men by the long-continued abuse
of the boat scheme, that they (the boats) were not able for the
work. The men of these earlier days of boat- work were not
keen at it. My notebooks of the time were full of instances
of laziness : —

' The work,' I wrote, ' at its best was mechanically done : in its
normal state it was lethargic ; at its worst it was unwilling, careless,
and even worse. Heart there was none in it. There was neither
insolence nor refusal, no positive insubordination ; simply a clogged,
lethargic " hands-down " attitude that was even more hopeless than
the most iasubordiaate refusal ; the word " alacrity " had no place
in the day's business.'

I might multiply that extract by many others of a similar kind.
This enterprise of ours was the grandest and the noblest work
in war tried in my time. I felt all the enthusiasm of its splendid
purpose, its colossal difficulties, its grand theatre, this wondrous
old river, in every fibre of my being ; and in all the length of
the chain at which we tugged from Cairo to Dongola, I knew
there was only one man to whom I could appeal with the hope
of being listened to at this last moment possible to our success.
Well, it is all long buried in the dead past now. But for the
last few days as I write I have been looking again into the old
notebooks, wherein I find some of the letters and telegraph
messages and orders blurred and blotted with the sweat and
dust of many a bygone bivouac, and it comes back again with
something of the sweet and the bitter which I then knew —
for, despite failure and dashed hope, that old wonderful river,
in the various phases of its own mysterious Ufe, had become
to me a strange solace, despite the savagery of its wild rocks
and the whirling waters of its cataracts.

During the thirty days following the rebuff at Hafir, I went
up and down the cataracts, hustling lagging boats, giving a
lead through a rapid, getting an extra half-hour out of a bevy

288 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of boats, distributing copies of a general order to commanding
officers, and often taking a hand on the tug-line to shame some
loitering boat's-crew into better work.

In the dangerous reaches above the Second Cataract I had
a few quiet spots selected, on island or mainland, into which
we steered at dusk, tied up, lighted a fire of driftwood, had
supper, and laid down blankets for the night. These are the
memories of the Nile that still live with me, and it was these
scenes that soon made me see, through the foredoom of our
failure, how smaU it all was in comparison with this mighty
desert of death and the stream of life that flowed through it.
Mixed up with messages to Wady Haifa, boat orders, and
letters to Dongola, I find bits such as this : —

' 14ih Dec. Kaibar. — Sent camel with letters to Dongola. Got
away 8.30. Three hours' writing. Late sleepers and starters, the
modern soldier and officer. The breed is falling off. Another

rasping letter from . Fine breeze up long reach of river to the

two big rocks. Freshness of wind off desert and fragrance of
aromatic sand plants. Officers lose touch of their men as they
rise in rank. It is the penalty they pay for promotion. Napoleon
in 1815 was not the General Bonaparte of 1796. Camped near
" sent " trees, beside old graves. Petrffied wood. Granite boulders.
Sadness of these Nubian Nile evenings — the waihng sounds of the
water-wheel all through the night, the low moan of the wind through
ragged thorn bushes and dry grass stalks. There is more true
philosophy, as it is called, in the Lord's Prayer than in all the books
ever written by man ; take it slowly word by word and weigh the

words. With regard to this expedition, ask M , or any other

independent man who has worked this line of communications, as
to what the feeling of the Naval and Egyptian (Army) officers is.
Ambigol, Dal, latterly Absaret, Kaibar — aU alike. Shot a wild
goose. Camped on island in middle of Third Cataract. Stars.
Roar of river.

' \4ih Dec. — Up to top of Cataract. Hard pulling in rapids, but
did it all by oars and sails. No tracking. To Abu Fatmeh at
8.30 A.M. Earle there. Here all the swells are passing up to Korti.
All going by camel, too precious to trust themselves in boats,
apparently. I am to be the Moses of the expedition, not to enter
the promised land.

' 15^^ Dec. — Off down the Third Cataract again. These rapids are
my treadmill. Big fish killed in shallow water ; Krooboys forced
him on rock and Tom Williams stunned him with blow of axe on

NOTEBOOK JOTTINGS 289

head — five feet in length and a hundred and twelve pounda in
weight. Good eating to-night. Camped island below Cataract.
Found my camel and Farag the driver on mainland. He had been
up to Dongola, down to Dal, and up again here in last ten days.
Splendid fellow, black as night. Cold night. Crew tired.

' 16th Dec. — Off to Kaibar on camel. Farag finds a donkey and
comes as guide across desert. Donkey collapses, shutting up hke
a closing telescope. Go on alone, through desert of rocks, four
hours, then sight Nile and two big rocks. Three hours more to
Kaibar. Many sails of boats visible on reach below Cataract.
Thirty have passed Kaibar in last four days. Camel tired. Sleep
on ground very soundly after long ride. Wallets for pillow. Camel
near me,

' llth Dec. — In steam pinnace No. 102 from Kaibar towards
Hanneck through twenty or more boats all doing well. Poor
boats ! Some of them look worn, pitched, patched, and tin-plated,
yet going gaily in light wind and able to do more in the long run

than any steam pinnace. Passed poor old Colonel , wounded

at Tel-el-Kebir, full of pluck, teeth all gone, and helmet too. Got
wood for pinnace on Isle Adwin. What work ! Recalls West
Coast days eleven years ago. Ran aground on sandbank going up
west channel, in water up to middles, trying to shove her off. No
go, sand silts up round us in strong current. After an hour boat still
fast in mid-river. Natives come out. Watching play of sand in
current, I see only chance is to get head of pinnace up-stream ;
sand has then no lee side to silt up on. We get head up-stream.
I take helm, crew in water stamping on sand. Go ahead full speed.
Shove bow, keep sand shifting with feet. Scrape over bank into
deep water. All jump in. Away up river to Zimmet Island,
which we reach after dark. My boat comes down to meet me at
Wood Station, and I get to Gibbs' Camp lat«. Gibbs wrecked five
times in thirty-nine days in nuggers between Sarras and Fatineh.
Greeks at Dongola buy Hicks Pasha's treasure from Dervishes at
four shillings the sovereign ! This Greek is the man we are really
fighting for. He will outstay us aU.

' 2&h Dec. — Down river again to Kaibar. Struck rock in Shaban
rapid, damaged, repair. Passed seventy-five boats going well,
good wind. Foimd two Colonels on portage.

' 22n^ Dec. — Passed forty-six boats over Cataract. All day on
portagt: Arrived, Colonel of Gordon Highlanders and two boats ;
seventeen days from Gemai. That is what should be !

' 23rd Dec. — Passed twenty boats over Cataract. Hot day. Old
sheik of Cataract and his men and boys on rocks. Sheik gives them

290 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

one piastre a day. I keep his pay in arrear. He says he will strike.
I tell the interpreter to sa.y to him my stick -will do the same : three
shillings a boat too much to give the old rascal. Gesticulations,
shoutings, rocks. Work weU done.

' 24:th. — Writing telegrams. Peel, Wortley pass to Korti. All
the others gone there. I am out in the cold with a vengeance.
Wrote letter in reply to BuUer, who has gone on to Korti a week ago
on camel. Curious Christmas Eve.

' 25th. — And stranger Christmas Hay. Naval Brigade passes
Kaibar fifteen days out from Sarras. At 2.30 I start up river again,
get a goose with a long-shot bullet at dusk, and have him for dinner
— a welcome change from Chicago " bully " beef. MoonUght in
the desert rocks. Stars, intense silence, no sound to-night of water-
wheel, man or beast, from the surrounding desert. Are the shep-
herds keeping "heir night-watches, as of old, on the Judean hills ?
Outlines of those hills the same as these. Stars, Canopus, Sirius
all here too. How the scene is brought before one ! '

' It was at this time that an express reached me from Kaibar
reporting that a box of treasure, carried in a cartridge-box,
had been missed from a camel ammunition convoy four days
earlier farther down the river — eleven thousand pounds in
gold. The convoy was then at Kaibar. I sent back an order
directing the convoj'', about one hundred and forty camels,
to proceed on its march next day across the desert to Abu
Fatmeh as usual, and I wrote privately to the officer in charge
telling him to halt his convoy some four miles out in the open
desert and to await my arrival ; then I rode out to the spot
indicated. I found the convoy halted as directed. I formed
the men, soldiers and natives, in two lots, and told them that
a box of treasure was missing ; that it could not have been lost ;
that it must either have been stolen or be still with the column ;
and I offered twenty -five pounds reward to any man who would
step out and say where the box was. I told them further that
if no one would reveal the whereabouts of the treasure, I would
be obliged to institute a close search in saddles, bags, etc.,
and even to strip everybody to their skins. I gave five minutes
for reflection, and then began the search. Everything was
opened out ; the place was as bare as the palm of one's hand ;
the sun was brilliant above ; nothing was found — ^not^'one
golden sovereign could be seen in package, pocket, or saddle.
There was nothing more to be done, and after an hour spent

THE HAZARDS OF THE RTVER 291

in this fruitless examination, I ordered the convoy to load up
and proceed south. I reported the loss, the box of golden
sovereigns was ' written off ' in the official phraseology, and in
due time the convoy reached Dongola, and proceeded with
the other camel transport across the Bayuda towards Metem-
meh. The day of Abu Klea came ; the square, inside of which
were the baggage and riding camels, was broken by the wild
rush of the Arab spearmen, and a desperate fight ensued within
the broken square itself, a fight in which the wedged mass
of camels alone saved the day. In the midst of the fiercest
fighting a cry arose for more cartridges ; boxes were hastily
opened, and out from one of these boxes rolled a mass of golden
sovereigns. The fighting was forgotten by the men who were
nearest to the scene, a wild scramble ensued, and in half a
minute the last piece of gold had been fobbed up. \Vhat had
originally happened was that the cartridge-box containing the
gold had got mixed up with the cases of ammunition, and as
the boxes had only some small private mark to indicate them,
the mistake was onlj^ discovered in the square at Abu Klea.

I spent the 26th December forcing up the rapids which
extend for several miles below the Third Cataract, and giving
help to the many boats T^hich were now labouring over a
particularly difficult piece of water called Shaban. This
cataract was not marked upon our maps, but it had proved the
most dangerous of any in the whole river. Of the dozen
soldiers and voyageurs lost in the length of the five hundred
miles from Wady Haifa to Hebbeh, Shabah cost us three lives.
I had no^^■ run it up and down half a dozen times without
accident, but in this last trip on 26th December it aU but
caught us, and in a way most unexpected.

We were forcing up a very bad ' gate ' between rocks, and
were doing well in very swift and apparently deep water,
when the stem-post suddenly touched a sunken rock, stopping
the way on the boat. Instantly the bow feU off to one side,
and the boat swung roiuid at a tremendous pace, pivoting upon
the held steni-post. The passage was extremeh^ narrow be-
tween the rocks ; if the bows touched the rock ever so shghtly,
we were over in water running faster than any mill-race. The
bows whirled round clear, I don't think there were four
inches to spare. A week earlier we had run this passage, but

292 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the river had fallen a foot in the interval, and that sunken tooth
had got within biting distance of our kelson. It is such an
incident as this which makes the cataract reaches of the Nile
so difficult and dangerous.

I got to my island haven in the Third Cataract early on the
27th, and found there the following note from Colonel Frederick
Maurice of Abu Fatmeh, addressed to me ' At top of Shaban
Gate,' 25th December : —

' Received last night following telegram from Genl. Buller, Korti :
" If you can get at Butler, ask him to come here as soon as can."
I have your camel ready for you, and if you decide to go by camel
will make up a party for you somehow, but wait for you to decide
numbers, etc. Christmas and New Year best wishes.'

I rode the camel to Fatmeh, the boat arrived later ; we
filled in with a hundred days' rations, and at 9.30 next morning
we were off for Korti. By the evening of the 30th we had
covered eighty miles of river ; then the north wind fell, and
the oar and track-line had to be used. On New Year's Day
Debbeh was passed, and at sunrise on 4th January I reached
Korti.

I have already told in detail the story of the Nile Expedition
as it had impressed me as a subordinate actor in its strangely
varied scenes.^ I regarded it then, and I still think of it,
as the most remarkable attempt made in modern times to
conquer in four months the difficulties of great distance, the
absence of food supplies, and the opposition of a very brave
and determined enemy, flushed by a long career of victory,
and filled with a fanaticism as fierce as that which had carried
the Arabian soldiers of the Prophet over half the Eastern and
Western world twelve centuries earlier.

The Nubian village of Korti was a strange place in the first
half of January 1885. One saw there on the high bank of the
Nile an extraordinary mixture of the masses and the classes
of EngHsh social life. The English boats were arriving in
crowds daily, all carrying their five months' food supplies —
three months for their own crews, and two months for the
camel column which was to cross the Bayuda desert to
Metemmeh. Truly had these wonderful little ' whalers '

^ The Campaign oftht Cataracts.

LETTERS HOME 293

brought their own revenges along with them. Here, in the
face of guardsmen and journahsts, and officers and men of
twenty different regimental corps, was written large in the
vast verity of victuals — the only truth that appeals to all
classes and creeds — ^the fact that by the means of these long-
derided and abused boats, and by them alone, had this
concentration of men, horses, and camels been possible at this
Bayuda village fourteen hundred miles from Alexandria — all
done within four and a half months from the date on which
the long-delayed permission to build and equip these same
boats had been grudgingly given to me in London.

I shall enter here extracts from two letters I had written
from London to my wife in August 1884 : —

'9<A August.

' Here I am after four days of intense heat. I do think I have
aone in these four days four weeks of ordinary War Office work. But
such vacillation you cannot imagine I They are veering about like
weathercocks. It is terrible to have to serve such idiots. The
heat is Egyptian : eighty-four degrees in the coolest room.'

And again : —

'12<A Auguat.

' A hasty line to report progress. It would take long hours to tell
you of the struggles of the past week. One day we won, the next
we lost, but to-day the opponents of my plan have caved in, and our
four hundred boats are to be ordered. We have got two hundred
already fixed, and hope to have the other two hundred settled in
two days from now. I am to go out in charge of them ia the end

of September. This morning I got a letter from Lord by

mounted messenger to go to breakfast vn\h him at nine o'clock.
We had a long fight all day with the " Fuzboi " (i.e. the Authorities),
and at 4 p.m. we won. In a week from this day the whole four
hundred boats will be out.'

Just two months later, on the 17th October, I wrote thus
from Korosko : —

' Here I am on my way to Wady Haifa, all going well so far as my
particular business is concerned, but the outside work of transport
and supply is by no means so flourishing. I do not hesitate to say
that in the long seven hundred miles from here to Cairo, eight out
of every ten of our own people are either actively or passively

294 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

opposed to our expedition, ready to make the most instead of the
least of difficulties, and to " crab " the project as much as they can.
It is a most unfortunate state of things, but, in spite of all diffi-
culties, I feel pretty certain of getting one hundred of our boats
away from the Second Cataract by the 1st of November or sooner.'

Another snapshot letter, ten days later : —

' Bal-el-Kebir, 2nu Cataract, 2Qth October,

' During the last three or four days my work has at times been
more than exacting. I have had a hard battle, but as I write I
am a winner all along the line. Briefly the position was this. The
railway from Haifa to Sarras had quite broken down. In London
it had been counted on for the carriage of our boats round the great
Second Cataract. We were, therefore, face to face with the necessity
of taking the boats through this Second Cataract, the worst obstacle
on the river. I examined the cataract on the day following my arrival
at Haifa, and saw the manner in which the naval people proposed
to take our " whalers " up. I saw at once that they must smash
the precious craft to atoms. They really did not know the first
principles of rope-work in rapids. I protested, but to no avail ;
they were to have their way. Then I came out here, fifteen miles
from Haifa, and determined to stop them when they had smashed
the first boats. On the way out I heard of the loss of one,
and the dangerous escapes of a few others. I wrote most strongly
to Lord W. and to Buller, protesting. The camp of the sailors is
six miles from here, and I found that they did not arrive at their
work here until 9 a.m. No boat had yet passed the " Great Gate " ;
the one lost had been lost lower down the river. I determined to
take a boat through the " Great Gate " with natives, on my own
plan, before any of the sailors appeared on the scene. The telegram
will probably have told you of my success. The boat was through
by 7.45 A.M. safe and sound, and when the nav^al people arrived,
they found the problem solved. Lord W. and Buller appeared later :
then the navy tried their plan. We waited four hours on the rocks.
At last the ponderous gear was set going, the boat narrowly escaped
destruction three or four times, and nothing but her wonderful
strength and buoyancy saved her. Then all were convinced, and
I was allowed to have my own way. But what a fight it has been !
I was deserted by all. Buller was dead against me. It was not a
pleasant thing for them to be obliged to eat their own words with their
oum eyes. (Allow me the bull.) This is a wild spot. I am camped
on a point with rapids all around, the heat is a hundred degrees in
my tent ; but I am very well, thank God, and yesterday was a

MORE LETTERS 295

bright day in my life. What I prized most was the success of the
boats ; the one tried by the navy was put by their methods into the
worst whirlpool in the " Great Gate," and rode it through in
triumph. . . .'

One more snapshot letter from that distant time and I have
done : —

' KoRTi, I2th January 1885.

' I sent you a few words of cheer at Christmas by wire, but my
letters have been getting fewer. I really had not the heart to write
bad news. I had suffered so much from what I must always regard
as unjust treatment at the hands of my " best friends " that I could
only go on day after day working, and lying down each night with
the hope, which work done gives, that it would all come right in
the end. Well, it has come, if not right, certainly better than it was.
The past cannot now be undone — those long weeks when I was denied
the most pressing wants. That is over, thank God, but the harm it
all caused to the boats cannot be set right. It^is too long and too
painful a story to tell you now ; but sometime 'perhaps you will
hear it all. I had gone over my weary river reach between Kaibar
and the Third Cataract for the eighth time, when I got a telegram
calling me up here. I came like the wind, completing the straight
run from Sarras to Korti in eighteen days — the quickest passage
made by any boat. No. 387 had covered above one thousand miles
of the Nile since I quitted Gemai on the 17th November. The
papers will have told you long ago what is being done here, but they
will not have told you that three-quarters and more of the supplies
for the Desert Camel Column has come from our " whalers." . . .
I have indeed had ample recompense for the thought and labour
given to these boats and to this expedition in the unspoken approval
of the officers and me^i. The latter know well enough who works
for them. ... I have sent to Cox & Co. my pay and allowances
for last three months, only £160 or thereabouts. It is less pay, all
counted, than I got in Devonport, and I have a lower position on
the staff here than I had there. So much for what you thought
" my sincere friends " would do for me in the way of " local rank."
Still, I say to myself that " it is all right." War is the sum of all
human wrongdoing, and it also holds every other possible injustice
in it. Never mind, " cheer up." It will be all for the best in the
long run.'

At Korti, in that first week of 1885, there was only one thing

296 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

wanting — camels. Had two or three thousand additional
camels been collected at Korti by Christmas Day 1884, a
brigade of British troops might have easily reached Metemmeh
on the 10th January, even as things then stood as regards men
and supplies ; and a second brigade have been following closely
in their wake. But there is little to be gained out of ' might
have beens ' by people who are fed and nurtured upon the
false facts of doctored history.

AVhen I reached Korti on 4th January, the advanced portion
of the Desert Column had already left that place for Gakdul,
a watering-place half-way on the road to Metemmeh, but the
number of camels to mount and carry supplies, even for a
force of two thousand fighting-men, was totally insufficient,
and it was necessary to unload the camels at Gakdul, form a
depot there, and bring the animals back agam to Korti for
another load of supplies. Thus the leading portion of the force
left Korti on the 30th December, arrived at Gakdul after a
forced march on the morning of the 2nd January, started again
for Korti on the same evening, and reached that place at noon
on the 5th January, having covered a total distance of one
hundred and ninety-six miles in five days and twenty-one
hours. This march sealed the fate of the Desert Column. The
camel is a much enduring beast of burden, but one hundred
and ninety-six miles in one hundred and forty-one consecutive
hours was more than even he could bear. It was pitiable
to see these poor beasts dragging themselves to the river on
the 5th, 6th, and 7th, many of them falling dead at the water's
edge as they tried to drink. The main body of the Desert
Column finally left Korti on 8th January, reached Gakdul on
the morning of the 12th, and at 2 p.m. on the 14th January
started on the remaining ninety miles to Metemmeh. The
camels were now completely done. As the Official History says,
' They had been marching for sixteen days almost without a
rest on a short allowance of food, and with little water." Every
single camel had been doing, or trying to do, the work of two,
perhaps of three animals. I need not delay over the remaining
history of that unfortunate column. It fought splendidly at
Abu Klea and Abu Cru, and reached the Nile on the night of
19th January. Gordon's four steamers, which had been lying
there since September, came into touch with the column on the

AT KORTI 297

afternoon of the 21st. The 22nd was spent in making a naval
reconnaissance down the river to Shendy, which town was
heavily shelled. The 23rd was taken up with the naval business
of carrying out repairs to the steamers, and at 3 p.m. on that
day, Captain Lord C. Beresford, R.N., reported to Sir Charles
Wilson that the vessels were ready to proceed. At 8 a.m. the
next day, the 24th January, two steamers, Bordein and Tela-
liawiyah, left Gubat for Khartoum. All the rest is too well
known. On the 28th the steamers came into sight of Khartoum
at 11 A.M., and, steaming slowly forward under a heavy fire
from several points, realised about 2 p.m. that the city was in
the hands of the Mahdi. As they were returning down-stream
the news of the faU of Khartoum two days earlier reached them.
Our great Nile Expedition had ended in failure.

Meanwhile, at Korti, the despatch of the infantry column
destined to proceed to Berber in boats by the river had gone
forward unceasingly, and on the 16th January I left Korti,
having by that date seen two hundred and seventeen boats
repaired, stored with a hundred days' supplies, and sent for-
ward to Hamdab at the foot of the Fourth Cataract, about
fifty miles up-stream from Korti. In the dozen days spent on
the river shore at Korti many people came to look at our work,
and exchange a word with me, too many of them a last word —
Herbert Stewart, Primrose, Bumaby, Wilson, Piggott and
De Lisle, Dickson, Swaine, Grove, Talbot, Pirie, Peel, Brockle-
hurst, Wardrop, Rhodes, M'Cahnont, Barrow, Alleyne, Adye,
Stuart -Wortley, Fitzgerald, Colbome, Martin, Sandwith,
BlundeU, W^auchope, Boyd, O'Neal ; and there would also
come along this high bank to have a word about the boats
the special correspondents attached to the Expedition :
WiUiams, Cameron, St. Leger, Herbert, Colbome, Bennett-
Burleigh, Melton Prior, and another who was something of many
things, one of the most dauntless mortals I ever met in life.
Many of these men left their bones in the Soudan ; some rose
to high place in their profession ; but the story of the end of
the one whom I have last mentioned, is so strange that I must
teU it here.

I first met him in CaUfornia in 1873, on my way from
British Columbia to the West Coast of Africa. We next met
in the Cataract of Dal, where I found him attempting to work

298 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

up the Nile in a tiny steam launch which held himself, a stoker,
and one other person. He was wrecked shortly after, but got
up with the Naval Brigade, made the desert march, and was
present with Lord Charles Beresford in his action at Wad
Habeshi above Metemmeh on the 3rd February. On his way
up the Nile he had indulged in the then, and now, fashionable
tourist pursuit of tomb-rifling and mummy-lifting ; and he
had become possessed of a really first-class mummy, which,
still wrapped in its cerecloths, had been duly packed and sent
to ^England. When the Nile Expedition closed, he went to
Somaliland, and, somewhere in the foothills of Abyssinia, was
finally killed b}'^ an elephant, and was buried on a small island
in a river flowing from Abyssinia southwards. The mummy
got at Luxor eventually reached London. The correspondent's
friends, anxious to get their brother's remains to England,
sent out a man with orders to proceed to the spot where he
had been buried and bring the remains home. This man
reached the river, together with the Somali himters who had
accompanied the deceased on his hunting expedition the
previous year, but no trace could be found of the little island
on which the grave was made ; a great flood had descended
from the Abyssinian mountains, and the torrent had swept
the island before it, leaving no trace of grave or island. Now
comes the moral. The mummy was in due time unwound in
London, and the experts in Egyptology set to work to decipher
the writings on the wrappings. Truly were they spirit rappings !
There, in characters about which there was no cavilling on the
part of the experts, were written a varied series of curses upon
the man who would attempt to disturb the long repose of the
mummified dead. ' May he,' ran the invocations, ' be aban-
doned by the gods. May wild beasts destroy his life on earth,
and after his death may the floods of the avenging rivers root
up his bones, and scatter his dust to the winds of heaven.'

The only other verification of the curse of a mummy that I
have met with is one still more striking. It wiU be found
recorded in a well-known work on Syria and Palestine, The
Land and the Book, by Thomson, an American missionary in
Syria. He tells us that some time in the 'fifties of the last
century, the hidden tomb of an old Phoenician king was dis-
covered at Sidon. The lid of the sarcophagus bore a long

THE FORTUNES OF THE RIVER COLUMN 299

inscription lq Phoenician characters. It was found to be a
continuous adjuration to ' Every royal person and to every
man not to open my sepulchre . . . nor to take away the
sarcophagus of my funeral couch, nor to transfer me with my
funeral couch upon the couch of another.' Then comes the
sentence : for ' the holy gods . . . shall cut off that royal
person and that man who has opened my couch or who has
abstracted this sarcophagus, and so also the posterity of that
royal person . . . whoever he be, nor shall his root be planted
downward nor his fruit spring upward . . . because I am to
be pitied, snatched away before my time like a flowing river.'
The missionary Thomson (he is writing in the late 'fifties) then
goes on to say : * These imprecations will scarcely be visited
upon Louis Napoleon, or the officers of the French corvette,
La Serieicse, on board of which the sarcophagus was carried
to France.' Had he waited another dozen years or so he might
perhaps have omitted that final sentence.

I make this digression because I have always objected to
the ghouhsh desire on the part of so many of our people to rifle
tombs in Egj'pt, a practice which, in spite of regulations, has
obtained extensively in recent years. I have myself been the
recipient of an official order to embark eighteen large cases of
tomb ' finds ' as ' regimental baggage ' at Alexandria.

I can tell only in brief the fortunes of the River Column,
which left the foot of the Fourth Cataract on the 24th January
1885, in two hundred and seventeen of our boats, carrying
twenty-four thousand men, fully provisioned for three months.
Of the river and the country before us nothing was known
beyond the fact that the former, for a distance of over one
hundred miles, was regarded as bemg hopelessly impracticable
for boats of any description, and that the shores consisted of
rocks piled together in such confused masses as to render
the passage of horses and camels along them impossible for
long distances. * You wiU get your boats over the cataracts
between Wady Haifa and Dongola,' a traveller in these regions
said to me in London in September, ' but you will never get
them over the cataracts of the Monassir country.' It was
this country of the Monassir that now lay in our front, and, to
add to its natural embarrassments of land and water, the whole
of the Monassir tribe and that of the Robatab, with Arabs

300 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

from Berber, had elected to try their strength against us in
the worst part of the route, a long defile known as the Shukook
Pass.

From the 24th January to the 10th February we worked
away at these rocks and cataracts harder than ever, but with
the difference that the Toilers of the River had to be protected
from hostile attack along the shores. To me feU this duty,
and I was now riding the rocks on an Arab pony, as before I
had been breasting the rapids in a boat. But, though moving
on the shore, I had still charge of the boat advance, the official
phrase being, ' to command the advanced guard both by land
and water." The double duty involved in these orders was
arduous but interesting. One had to keep an eye all round the
compass ; in front and on the right flank for the enemy, on
the river to the left, and to the rear upon our own people. By
this time I had come to know the various values of the Nile
waters pretty accurately, what our boats could do against
the Nile, and what the Nile could do at its worst against our
boats. Thus I was able by noon each day to form an estimate
of the spot on the river shore which a force of four companies
of infantry would be able to reach by evening. I then looked
about for the best camping-place on the shore, waited until
the first boat had arrived there, gave orders for the thorn
bushes to be cut, laid out the ground for the zereba, and then
went forward again with the forty hussars and the score of
camel-men to explore the rocks in front for six or eight miles,
getting back at nightfall to find the advanced guard of four
or six companies assembled there, and all made ready for the
night. The main body of the River Column would be camped
from two to six miles behind, according to the difficulties their
boats had met in the day's ascent through the cataracts.
These latter were even more formidable than any we had
encountered below Dongola, but our men were now thoroughly
seasoned ; they had become exceedingly expert in all kinds of
bad water, and, but for the necessities imposed by the presence
of an active enemy always only a few miles in our front,
it would have been possible for the column to make an
average distance of perhaps eight oi' ten miles daily. With
an enemy, however, in proximity, it became necessary to
keep the battahons concentrated at night, excepting the

THE MAHDI IN KHARTOUM 301

advanced guard under my command, which had its separate
camp some miles in front of the main body.

On the 5th and 6th February some strange things happened.
I reached, early on the 5th, a high ridge of black rocks with a
line of white quartz rock at top running at a right angle from
the shore, and having an ugly pass choked with large boulders
between its western end and the river. A slave-boy, who had
come to us from the Arabs, declared that his late owners were
behind this ridge. We, therefore, threaded the tumbled rocks
with caution, passed the end of the ridge, and found clearer
ground at its further side. The pass between ridge and river
had breastworks of loose stones in it, and a rude hut of the
same construction stood in its centre. I climbed the rock
ridge to the right and had a lengthened survey of the rugged
land in front. It was all a tossed and tumbled region of black
and lighter coloured rocks, and the river, where it could be seen,
deep sunken between its iron shores, was a tossing, tumbling
torrent of water. This ridge, Kirbekan, which rose about
four hundred feet above the river, had been occupied by the
Mahdists two days earlier ; they had left it for the real Shukook
Pass, the entrance to which we could see two miles forward,
marked by a particularly black and forbidding mass of rocks.
I did not get back to the bivouac till after dark, and I found
there an unusual order awaiting me. It was to halt horses
and boats next morning, and await orders in camp. These
came early. They were of strange and fatal import. The end
had come suddenly. The Desert Column had reached the
NUe at Metemmeh ; Wilson had found Khartoum in the hands
of the Mahdi. He had returned to Metemmeh with the greatest
difficulty. Our column was to stand fast untU further orders
were received. Earle joined me next morning. I took him
to a high hill in the neighbourhood of the zereba, from the
summit of which he could see Kerbekan and many other hills
ahead. Seated there alone we talked of the future. We
were old friends, dating back to the days of the Red River and
Montreal in 1870. Earle was a man of very fine character.
He had seen service in the Crimea, at Alma, Inkermann, and
the Siege. It was curious that now, when we had talked over
all our present prospects and chances, his mind seemed prone
to revert to these old scenes of Crimean service. He described,

302 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

as we walked back to the zereba, the day of the Alma, thirty
years earlier, ' the last of the old style of battles,' he called it,
before the rifle in the hands of the mfantry soldier had put an
end to the pomp and circumstance of war for ever.

Two days later, on the 9th, I was ordered forward again,
this time to find the black ridge of Kirbekan bristling with the
Mahdi's spearmen. It didn't matter now. I had seen the
land beyond the ridge on the 5th, had climbed the ridge itself,
exammed the pass between ridge and river ; there was nothing
more to learn about it ; and when General Earle arrived with
his staff at midda}'- on the 9th, I had the plan of attack ready for
him, the troops in position twelve hundred yards in front of
the enemy's ridge.

Things had fallen out most fortunately for me. Had I been
two days earlier at Kirbekan I should have found the Arabs
there, and could not have examined the length and depth of
the formidable position which they held. A day later it would
have been the same, but on the 5th I had just hit off one of
the two daj^s in which the ridge was clear of the enemy. I had,
in fact, eaten my midday biscuit and cheese on the very
spot which, five days later, formed the key of the enemy's
position.

But Earle and Brackenbury had a plan of their own for a
front attack, and, of course, I said nothing about my plan
until they asked me what I thought of theirs. Then I said my
say. It was not to attack in front, for I laiew every inch of
the ground, having spent half an hour on foot stumbling over
its maze of boulders four days before. ' What then ? ' they
asked. ' March round the left flank of the ridge,' I said, ' and
attack from the rear ; the ground is open on that side.' This
plan was finally agreed to, provided I would run a line that
evening round the flank I proposed to turn, and make assurance
doubly sure that the ground was as feasible to the foot in
practice as my eye, looking at it from the top of the ridge on
the 5th, had deemed it to be. A couple of hours before sunset
I took a small patrol out, and working round through the desert
unobserved by the Arabs, got well in rear of their line on
Kerbekan, so near to them that, lookmg over a lower spur on
the reverse side of their position, I could see their movements
on and behind the ridge, and count their numbers. I had got

THE ACTION OF KIRBEKAN 303

to within five hundred yards of their supper fires. I got back
after sunset to the bivouac. Earle was alone, sitting on an
old sakeyeh wheel. I told him that m an hour and a quarter
his force could be in rear of the Arab position, marching over
easy ground. He sent for Brackenbury. ' The account is so
favourable,' he said when the latter officer appeared, ' that I
think we must give up the idea of a front attack, move round
the left flank of the ridge, and assault from the rear.' This
manoeuvre was done early the following morning with com-
plete success. We turned the position on its left, got behind
the ridge and the boulder kopjes near the river, cut the Arab
force in two, isolated its vanguard, holding the rocks, from its
main body and its reserves in the Shukook.

The moment the head of our column appeared round the
enemy's left flank, a precipitate retreat of the main body began
from behind the position to their camp, at the entrance of the
Shukook Pass. Our little body of hussars pounded along
as best their tired horses could go. Of the Dervishes, some
jumped into the river on their left ; others hid in the clumps of
boulders, and had a shot at us as we appeared. A few were
killed, but by far the larger number reached the Shukook
and got away into its labyrinths. Meanwhile the vanguard
on the ridge and in the kopjes, about three hundred in number,
abandoned to their fate, met their death bravely, and only
succumbed to volleys of the infantry after they had inflicted a
loss upon us very serious in its nature, although not great in
number. Three officers and four men were killed, and four
officers and forty-three men were wounded ; the officers lost
were Greneral Earle and Colonels Eyre and Coveney. At the
mouth of the Shukook Pass we came upon the Dervish camp
abandoned. We found in, it eight or ten Arab standards, a
lot of donkeys, and a few camels ; but, as we had only about
twenty hussars present, most of the animals could not be
secured, and many of them got away, like their masters, into
the rocks at the entrance of the Shukook Pass. I had here
the closest shave of getting a bullet in the head I ever experi-
enced. I had got to the top of a cluster of high rocks to have
a better survey of the masses of rocks surrounding our little
party, and I was leaning against a big one for a steadier sweej)
with the glass of the hUls around when a bullet, fired from across

304 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

the gorge within a hundred yards' range, flattened itself on the
rock six inches above my head. The man was so near that the
hit was simultaneous with the smoke and the report of the
rifle. I was down from my perch in a jiffy, and got three
men from below ; then we went up again to the rocks. I had
marked the exact spot on the opposite rock from which my
friend had fired ; the three carbines were laid upon it ; I put
my helmet where I had first stood ; my friend fired again, and
at the same instant three shots went off from our side. He
fired no more.

We buried our dead in the evening near the zereba from
which we had marched in the morning.

The command of the River Column now fell to Brigadier-
General Henry Brackenbury as next senior officer to Earle.
On the morning of the 11th February we were going forward
once more on the old familiar road. During the halt on this
day's march I rode back over the scene of the fight on the
previous day. ' Dead men,' they say, ' tell no tales ' ; but on
a battlefield no more eloquent spokesman can call to him who
wiU listen. Here the enemy's unburied dead told the story of
their revolt — these old grey-bearded veterans, these mere boys,
these strong men in the flov/er of their age, as they lay in every
attitude of painful death. They had fought to the last cart-
ridge for the homeland. Their ' punishment ' at our hands
had been severe. The rocks glistened with the leaden splashes
of our rifle bullets, where continuous volleys had searched
every nook and crevice.

But here I come to an incident which gave the acutest point
to the drama of this time. By merest chance, as the crew
of one of the boats were at their old work of towing along the
shore, a soldier of the Corn walls noticed a small native saddle
lying amongst the tumbled rocks, evidently dropped there by
a fugitive from the fight of the day before. A black goatskin
bag was fastened to the saddle, and in the bag the man found
a scrap of soiled paper. He might well have thrown the
crumpled scrap away, but his intelligence prompted him to
bring it to his captain. From the captain it passed to the
colonel of the battalion (Richardson). On my return to camp
before sunset, I learnt that the Arabic writmg on the bit of
paper had been deciphered sufficiently to let us know it con-

ALL OVER 305

tained * bad news.' Later on, the whole was made clear. This
is what it said : —

' On the night of the 26th January the army of the Mahdi entered
Khartoum and took the forts, city, and vessels in the river : the
traitor Gordon was killed. Inform your troops of this signal
triumph which God has given to the arms of the Prophet of His
Prophet.'

This was a copy of an original letter sent from Berber by
Mohammed el Khier, the Emir of the Mahdi, to Abdul Wad
el Kailik, the head Emir opposed to us here. I took the letter
to the lower camp. It was the first news we had had of the
fate of Gordon. We knew, six days previously, that Khartoum
had fallen ; now we knew Gordon was dead. He had written
a few months before : —

' Earle does not come to extricate me ; he comes to extricate the
garrisons, which affects our national honour. I hope he may
succeed, and that the national honour will reward him ; but I am
not the rescued lamb, and will not be.'

A strange chance had brought the first intimation of his death
to us almost on the very spot where Earle had faUen, and both
men had now passed beyond the reach of rescue and reward.

The receipt of this news had brought the Arabs out of the
Shukook fastness to fight us at Kerbekan in the very worst
position they could have selected for that purpose.

I must finish the record of the River Column. We passed
another group of cataracts above the Shukook Pass, and found
good water beyond them. We passed also the place where the
steamer Abbas lay wrecked on the rocks of Hebbeh, the scene
of the murder of Stewart, Power, and Herbin, and on 24th
February reached Huella, a few miles below Mograt Island. All
the worst water on the Nile lay behind us ; we had started from
Hamdab with two hundred and seventeen boats ; two hundred
and fifteen had arrived at the top of the long-supposed im-
passable cataracts of Monassir, carrying still sixty days' food
supplies for the entire force. The men were in magnificent
condition ; the boats were as sound and fit for further work
as the day they had left England five months earlier. I was
taking the mounted troops forward for another day's work

u

306 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

when an express messenger arrived from Korti carrj^^ing urgent
orders for the return to that place of the whole flotilla. The
Desert Column had collapsed as an effective force. It was
returning on foot to Korti. The boats turned back to Hebbeh,
and the mounted troops went forward for the last time towards
Abu Hamed. This, the last day of our reconnaissance work,
was the longest 3^et done. Between the forward march to
within sight of Mograt Island and the return to El Kab we
must have covered twenty-four miles, the greater part of which
was in soft sand. One horse and four camels died of exhaustion.
Nine days later we reached Meroe. I found an order there
to take command of the force which was to hold the place during
the summer. We were to tent the troops and prepare for
six months of blinding heat. The Home Government had
decided upon a campaign in the autumn, and ' to smash the
Mahdi.^

I have sometimes thought that, for some inscrutable reason,
the Almighty had given the English people a marvellous faculty
of acquhing wealth in peace, only equalled by their wonderful
power of wasting wealth in war — ' muddling through,' I think
they call it. I remember the Greeks in Cj^prus used to exclaim
as they watched our ways, ' Is it not a pity that God, who
has given these people so much money, should not have also
bestowed upon them some brains ? ' Or is it only

' A way we have in the Anny ?
A way we have in the Navy ? '

And if this be the case, could not the man}^ Varsities which
we now possess trj^- their hands at mending that particular
* way,' lest it should end all our other ways ?

CHAPTER XVIII

MeroiJ. Wady Haifa. Kosheh. Advance of the Dervishes, Ginniss,

Here, then, at Meroe, or Abu Dom, I found mj-self on the
8th March, in command of another advance-guard — ' the
farthest position up the river which we are to hold for the
summer.' I write thence : —

' I have a battahon of the Royal Highlanders, two guns, a troop
of cavalry, one hundred camel corps (Egjrptian), a section of
Engineers, fifty boats, and one hundred transport camels. We have
to hut the men, put the place in a state of defence, and reduce
what is now chaos to something like order. I shall, however, have
some sort of a rest in other ways : shall be able to take off my boots
at night, get clean things, and lie down on something besides sand.
We are on the left bank of the Nile, nearly opj)osite Gebel Barkal,
the site of the old capital of Queen Candace's kingdom, which is still
a perfect mine of relics, columns and capitals, broken pedestals,
overturned tombs, stone lions, and strange sheep-faced animals, all
lying in confused ruin, half or wholly buried in mounds of masonry
and rubbish. The rock face to the east of the flat-topped mountain
is hollowed into a temple, covered with hieroglyphics. The place is
a mine of Egyptian art and antiquities as yet untouched ; it is
fifteen hundred miles from the sea, and is, nevertheless, by no means
the last remnant of that once mighty Empire. A group of eight
pyramids lies a little way to the south of the hill ; some of them
are very perfect, scarcely a stone being out of place ; they are small,
only about forty feet in height, but beautifully built. If the Mahdi
or his myrmidons give me time during the summer, I would like
to clear away some of these piles of rubbish, and examine the ruins.'

A week later I wrote : —

' A week of hut building, cleaning, scraping, entrenching. . . .
We are here about one thousand Robinson Crusoes, building mud
cabins, biscuit box lean-to's, and shelters of palm leaves and straw,
the advanced sentinels in this great Soudan desert. Every one is

307

308 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

bent upon making the best of it, and many an old trick of camp or
lodgment learnt long ago in the North- West comes in handy now.
... So far, the heat is not trying, the nights are pleasant, the
thermometer ninety-three degrees to ninety-seven degrees in the
afternoons. ... If I were to let my pen run as to the twists and
turns that led to the loss of Khartoum and the death of poor Gordon
I would be writing for a month. Khartoum was lost in London,
in Cairo, in Assouan, in Haifa, in Dongola . . . but there would be
no use in speaking about it now. . . . How often I used to speculate
upon the effect the news from the Soudan would have in England ;
hopes raised to the highest pitch by partial successes — for they were
only partial — of the march across the desert, and then, total
collapse. Ah ! you may well say the " wasted precious days of
October and November," flung away through sheer stupidity,
selfishness, and narrow-mindedness. Poor W. frantic, but unable
to move a gigantic machine, the wheels of which had got clogged in
the hands of men who sought only their own conceits, and saw only
through the glass of their own vanities. Is it not strange that the
very first war during the Victorian Era in which the object was
entirely noble and -uorthy should have proved an utter and com-
plete failure, beaten at the finish by forty-eight hours ? These
things are not chances, they are meant, and the men and nations who
realise that fact are fortunate, for then they can learn. What a
lesson does the whole story of this Expedition teach ! Up to the
last they were saying there would be httle or no fighting. Poor
T. thought the same. " I will believe in the Mahdi fighting when
I hear the whistle of his soldiers' bullets," he said a day or two
before leaving Korti. " It 's a windbag," another remarked to
me.'

Three weeks later, 28th March, I find the following : —

' I have been up half the night, owing to a violent sand-storm
having made the sentries think the Arabs were coming on. . . .
Even now the temperature goes up some days to a hundred and ten
degrees. A telegram last evening brings news of the Reserves being
called out, and fifteen thousand men ordered to India. The close
of this nineteenth century seems likely to be as bad for England as
that of the eighteenth was. I cannot think that, A;\'ith war with
Russia all but declared, the flower of our fighting force and the
best of our thinking power will be left in the Soudan. If we are to
fight Russia there must be no humbug this time. A defeat would
mean National death. In the event of m ar between Russia and
the Afghans we must either knuckle down or withdraw from the

LETTERS HOME 309

Soudan. We can't keep half the army and all the staff up in this
wilderness.

' 1st May. — During the past week our mud roosts have been
fluttered by news of sudden movement down-stream. Renter gives
us daily the heads of pohtical and other news, and the first intima-
tion of probable evacuation came in that way. \Vhat an extra-
ordinary people we are ! For eight weeks we have been busy all
day and every day building huts, and making ready for the hot
season : now, when the huts are built and the hot season is upon
us, we up anchors and away. The Arabs regard us as people pos-
sessed by '■ jins " or devils, and this change of front will not tend
to lessen the idea. The Nile is now at its lowest stage of water,
but our poor old boats will again do the work. All our camels are
gone, the English boats alone remain. . . . My huts are real beauties.
... So the Suakim bubble has burst and this railway is given up.
It was sheer madness. These poor guides of ours are hopeless :
they differ from the Bourbons inasmuch as they forget everything
and learn nothing.

' 22nd May. — This should be my last letter from Meroe. We
march on the 26th for Dongola and Egypt. They have given me
the hot job. I command the rearguard to Dongola, picking up
as we go the various lots of horses, camels, guns, and men at the
different stations. The weather has become excessively hot, one
hundred and ten and one hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade,
with a wind that seems to come from a furnace mouth. To-day we
have the chmax : first stifling heat, then a vast sand-storm ; and
behind the storm came some most welcome rain, but not enough
even to sprinkle the hard, hot lips of the fevered desert. All prepara-
tions are complete, and at daylight on Tuesday I blow up the fort
and move off for Dongola.'

So on the 26th May we blew up our little fort with gun-
cotton and marched off from Abu Dom (' the father of Dom
palms '). I was sorry to leave the place ; no spot of greater
interest and possessing more of what makes for real Nile
beauty exists along the fifteen hundred miles from there to the
sea.

' You cannot Uve much with the Arabs,' I wrote, ' without learning
to hke them. They are quick, courteous, very brave, good-looking.
As to their deceit, etc., of which we hear so much, I don't think they
are a bit worse than the average acquaintance, I might even say
" friend," one finds in clubs and professions in the daily intercourse
of hfe in England. We call them " rebels," but right is wholly on

310 STR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

their side. The abominations of the Egyptian rule were beyond
words to express their atrocity.'

There is such a delightful paragraph in the Official History of
the Soudan Cam^mign, dealing with our retreat at this time,
that I cannot omit quoting it : —

' As it was certain that anarchy would immediately follow our
withdrawal, and probable that a retreat on our part would allow the
dormant hostility of the natives to find vent, it was necessary that
the retreat, especially of the advanced portion of the force, should
be conducted as rapidly and unexpectedly as possible. Jandet
Effendi, the Vakil of Dongola, who had taken the place of the deposed
Mudir, was at once informed of the intended retreat. He begged
for fifteen days' start, before our policy was made generally known,
in order that he might take what steps he could to mitigate the
murder and the rapine for which he believed our retirement would
be the signal. This was granted him and he at once started down
the river.'

Unfortunately for the truth of the picture here given, it hap-
pened to be mj?- duty to follow the excellent Vakil Jandet
Effendi a few days after he had descended the river in his self-
imposed mission of mercy and mitigation of suffering. Jandet,
who was a Circassian of the well-known tj'pe, had literally
swept both banks of the Nile of everything that he and his
bashi-bazouks could laj' hands on. The silver which these un-
fortunate peasants had gathered by selling us their provisions
and their labour during the past six months, their camels
and donkeys, had been carried clean ofif. Jandet travelled
in a large house-boat on the river. His mj-rmidons scoured
the palm patches and the dhourra plots on both banks. When
Jandet reached Dongola his house-boat was loaded with chests
of silver piastre coin thus gathered. Such is history ' as she
is wrote.'

The march from Meroe to Dongola, two hundred miles, in
end of Maj'^ and early June, was the hottest work that had ever
fallen to vay lot. I had to pick up at each summer station in
succession — Korti, Tani, Kurot, Abu Gus, and Handak — the
horses, guns, camels, and transport of the whole force, all the
remnants of the Desert Column that could not be put into our
old boats. I can never forget the last day's march from
Handak to Dongola. A desert blizzard blew straight in our

THE REARGUARD 311

faces, hot, strong, and bitterly biting with the grit, sand, and
small stones that it hurled in our teeth. Camels and horses
often turned aside, unable to face it. We had orders to leave
no camels behind us. The wretched animals that had been
in the Desert Column were spectres, mere bones and sores.
As they fell they had to be shot by the rearguard.

Two-thirds of the camels collected at Tani and Kurot thus
perished. I had taken the precaution of feeding up my camels
at Meroe for weeks before the move, giving them the large
stores of grain laid in in anticipation of the autumn campaign,
and ordered to be destroyed on evacuation, and although the
camels had a double distance to travel to reach Dongola, I
lost only one or two on the march down. But the strangest
part of the proceeding was that the general officer in command
of the force thought fit to report me to the commander-in-chief
for not having obeyed the orders to destroy the grain by fire.
Called on for an explanation, I replied that, although I had
departed from the letter, I had still observed the spirit of the
order, inasmuch as I had used the grain as extra fuel to keep
the ebbing fire of life m my unfortunate camels, and while
expressing regret at even the seeming departure from the letter
of the regulation, I added that my penitential feelings were
somewhat mitigated and consoled by the reflection that while
the camels of the censorious commander had lost some eighty
per cent, of their numbers on the short march, mme on the
longer route had not lost above two per cent. My temporary
commander at the time was an excellent but choleric little
man, and I learnt afterwards from one of the staff that, as the
thermometer was that da}^ about one hundred and twenty
degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, he was able to relieve his over-
burdened feeUngs when perusing mj^ letter, written on a sake-
yeh wheel at Debbali in the middle of the night and left at his
liut when I passed it at daybreak three hours later, only by
making several short leaps into the air as he ejaculated, ' Con-
soled ! — consoled ! — mitigated ! — mitigated ! — d d ! "

At Dongola my rearguard duties ended, and I got once agam
into my old boat. I shall never forget the change from shore
to river. The heat was terrific, but it felt as nothmg on the
water. As we sped down the shrunken but still lordly Nile,
now changed in colour from the old muddy tint to a bright

312 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

green hue — ^the true ' eau du Nil ' of the Parisian fashion-plates
— our boats 'were stiU able to run the Third. Cataract, Shaban,
Kaibar, and Amara down to Dal.

How strange these old scenes appeared ! It was only six
months since I had left them, but it seemed like as many years.

Finally, I reached Wady Haifa in mid-June, to find a tele-
gram there from Lord Wolseley offering me the command of the
new frontier, henceforth to be fixed at Wady Haifa. I ac-
cepted the offer, with two months' leave of absence to England,
and was in London on the 30th June. In two months' time I
was back in Egypt again. On 9th September I reached Wady
Haifa. Things had changed all round. The Nile was at its
topmost flood. The Dervishes were at Dongola. They had
followed our retreat closely ; their outposts were at the head
of the Third Cataract.

•You can imagine,' I wrote on the 11th September, ' how different
were the feelings with which I came to this place two days ago to
those of the 18th October 1884. Then everything was hopeful ;
no check had taken place ; I had caught up ten days of the time
estimate given to Lord Wolseley for the Secretary of State in
August, and I had every faith that, if left to myself, I could continue
to gain time on the long road still before us to Khartoum ; but from
that day forward began our delays and misfortunes. Little by little
the precious moments were allowed to drop, until the terrible words
" Too late " were stamped for ever upon our effort. But we must
not look back ; there is plenty of work to be done forward. I go
to Dal to-morrow to fix on a site for a small fort, which will be our
advanced station towards Dongola. . . . The Dervishes are at
Abu Fatmeh. All the wretched kinglets set up by us have fled :
our Intelligence officers now assert that the Mahdi is not dead,
but that he has retired into a cave, from which at the end of
three months he will come forth again. What is certain is that
Mahdiism is not dead but is gaining ground daily. ... So the
Gazette (for the Soudan) is out. I feel sure that my absence from
it is all for the best, and I have so many things to be thankful for
that I can truly rejoice in the good fortune of those who have been
given honours and rewards.

' \2th of October. — The Dervishes are becoming demonstrative
at the Third Cataract, and I think that we shall shortly have them
this side of Kaibar. Think of the row there would have been last
year in the English papers if they had been even half so close !

FORT BUILDING AT AKASHA 313

Biit now the papers don't even notice the fact. They '11 goon be
playing another tune, I 'm thinking.'

Meanwhile the problem before me was not an easy one to
meet. The railway from Wady Haifa had been completed
to Akasha, ninety miles. My orders were that this line was
to be protected from attack. To hold these ninety mOes and
the base at Haifa I had one weak battalion of British infantry ;
no cavalry, no guns, no mounted infantry ; one weak battalion
of black troops, one ditto Egyptian battalion, and about eighty
Egyptian camel corps. The Dervish gathering at Dongola
was reported in numbers varying from eight to fifteen thousand
men ; they had many guns and plenty of ammimition ; the
capture of Khartoum had put aU the resources of the arsenal
there at their disposal. From Kaibar the rail-head at Akasha
was, by desert route, not more than seventy miles. The
advanced portion of the Dervish army was, therefore, within
easy striking distance of our communications : it could cut
the railway by a thirty-hour march on camels. The Nile was
an exceptionally high one this j'ear ; the desert wells were full.

I took in these main conditions and possibihties in the four
days' visit to Dal. The first thing to do was to build a fort
on the Nile twenty miles beyond the end of the railway at
Akasha. This fort I counted upon to stop the first oncoming
of the Dervishes when they came down from Kaibar. If they
' sat down ' before my fort I should have time to gather
reinforcements in the ground between the fort, the head of the
railway, and the angle made by the Nile in its course from
Amara to Akasha, a rough and very broken piece of desert
measuring some thirty-three miles along the Nile shore and
about twenty-four across the desert. If thej'^ did not sit down
before it, but left it and passed on into the Batn-el-Hager
(* the womb of rocks '), through which our line of railway ran
for sixty miles, then undoubtedly they would do a lot of damage
to the line, give us plenty of hard work, and perhaps get even
as far as Sarras. But they would never get back again. They
might isolate my angle of ground between rail-head at Akasha
and the advanced post at Kosheh, but if I could only get my
fort buUt, garrisoned, and supplied in time, put a couple of
hundred mounted men into the angle, and put another garrison
at rail-head, I thought I would be able to play a fairly good

314 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

game with the ten thousand Dervishes now in our front at
Kaibar. Unfortunately, time and men were the chief factors
in the problem, and both were against me. The men were far
down the Nile — at Assouan, three hundred miles, and at Cairo,
six hundred miles farther. The Nile was against me in the
matter of time : you could float down the river to Cairo on a
log of wood in nine days ; you could not come up in a steamer
from Cairo to Wady Haifa in twenty days. Nor was that the
only difficulty. My masters were all down-stream too. I might
propose, they disposed. I might ask for men, guns, horses,
and supplies, in ten minutes by telegraph ; they would decide
in due time, and time paid man}^ dues on the Nile. Egypt has
always been the taxman's paradise. It is the same to-day.
We shall see presentlj^ how it all worked out.

I set to work at once building the advance post at a place
called Kosheh on the west shore of the Nile, six miles south
of the Dal Cataract, where the river, making a sharp bend to
the west, gave views up and down two reaches for six miles to
north and west. The spot also marked the debouch of the
desert road to ilbsarat and Kaibar, and it had the further
advantage of having tolerably level and open ground around
it. The jDlan of the fort was almost identical with that of the
work at Meroe, which I had blown up three months earlier.
It was built entirely of Nile mud, sun-dried into bricks of a
very durable nature, exactly similar to those which the Israel-
ites had declared to be the last straw (or absent straw) m the
burden of their bondage some three thousand years earlier.
On the present occasion, my Nile-mud brickmakers were
Soudanese blacks, excellent fellows, who made mud pies by
the thousand, and piled them one upon another at such a rapid
rate that by the end of October the fort was already in a for-
ward state, and early in November I had half a battalion of
the Cameron Highlanders encamped there, followed a fortnight
later by the remainder of the battalion.

The fort being finished, the black battalion (9th Soudanese)
were moved across to the west bank of the river, where they
soon built themselves another mud-pie fortification at that
side. These works were only completed and garrisoned in the
nick of time, for on the 28th November some eight or ten
thousand Dervishes were on the river at Amara, six miles from

MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES 315

Kosheh. They had played their game very nicely, holding
back at Kaibar until the last moment, and then coming on
with a rush, covering fifty miles in two days. My railway
was only a feeble thing : it was just capable of carrying one
hundred and eighty men from Haifa to Akasha in one day ;
then there was a two-days' march to Kosheh, so that to get a
battalion to the point at which I hoped to stop the Dervishes
from Wady Haifa would take ten days.

On 30th November I had in position at Kosheh two batta-
lions of British infantry, fifty British cavalry, two battalions
Egyptian infantry, twelve artillerymen, and one Krupp gun ;
one company mounted mfantrj^ and eighty men of the camel
corps, with sixt}' days' food, and four hundred rounds per man.
Two small steamers, one of which was the Lotus, lay in the river
off the fort. Two miles in rear of Kosheh I had an old ruined
Nubian castle, Mograka, put into a state of defence — a zereba
in front, walls loopholed, etc. Into this resuscitated ruin I
put a weak battalion (the 3rd) of the Egyptian army.^ It had
been neck and neck the whole way between my old enemy of
six months earlier in the Shukook Pass, Abd el Majid Wad el
Kailik, and myself. He knew a good deal more of my disposi-
tions and numbers than I knew of his. Every native Nubian
along the Nile was friendly to him, and his spies were among
us everywhere. Nevertheless, although I received a good deal
of false information as to the Dervish plans, I also gathered
sufficient accurate intelligence to make out their general pur-
pose and intentions. The enemy meant to cut our railwaj^
and then attack Kosheh and Akasha. They would hold us at
Kosheh with their main body, while a flying column would
SAving round through the desert and cut the railway behind
us. My game was exactly the reverse of this. It was to hold
them before Kosheh, and hit their raiders along the railway in
the Batn-el-Hager.

The ball opened on the 3rd of December, A raiding party
of one thousand men, with one brass gun on a camel, suddenly
appeared at Ambigol Wells on the railway at midnight, and
tore up the line for more than a mile. At daybreak on the 4th
they surrounded a smaU post which I had established at

1 The British commanding officers were St. Leger, Everett, Barrow, Lloyd,
Hunter, Bessant, Legge, and de Lisle.

316 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Ambigol, and brought their brass gun to bear agamst it.
Tliere was an incident connected with, this attack which
deserves record. The officer in command, Lieutenant Anneslej',
West Kent Regiment, had kept his thirty-five men camped out-
side the little redoubt. It was his habit to go out every
morning into the surrounding khor shooting sand grouse.
On the morning of the 1st December he noticed that the birds
killed had no food in their crops, whilst on other days it was
the rule to find the bird well filled with, the seeds of desert
plants. Aiinesley, a bit of a naturalist, asked himself why
the birds had not fed this morning — there mUst have been
something to disturb them. He had been warned to be ready
for a Dervish raid. There was a weU at Haumagh, eight miles
out in the desert. Were there Dervishes about to account
for the empty stomachs of the grouse ? Anyway, he would
get his men into the redoubt. A day earher I had ordered a
reinforcement of thirty rifles to Ambigol ; they arrived by
train almost at the moment that the Dervishes began their
attack. The train was a good target, and was repeatedly
struck. Engine-drivers and men made for the fort, and got
into it with trifling loss. The Dervishes now tore up the rail-
way line in the rear of the train, as they had already torn up
the rails a mile in front of it. Here, then, was the begimiing
of the test match I had been preparing for smce September.
So far the Dervishes had done weU : they had demonstrated
with five or six thousand men at Kosheh, and had struck my
railway twenty-six miles from Akasha and fifty from Kosheh
almost at the same time. It was now my turn to play. Had
I even one hundred more mounted men the game was an easy
one. All through October and November I had urgently
asked for cavalry, but to no purpose. Macaulay wrote of the
siege of Derrj- that ' even horse beans were doled out with a
parsimonious hand ' ; in my case it was horsemen that were
so treated. Almost from the day of my arrival at Wady Haifa
I had howled for cavalry. In my diary I find : —

' Representations made to General Commanding that in order effec
tively to patrol roads, Kosheh should be held by five hundred men,
half of them mounted, and that the railway and river transports
should be made as effective as possible.'

A WEAK FORCE TO RESIST DERVISHES 317

I added that an adyance of the Dervishes in force from Dongola
appeared to be certain.

We had now reached 1st December. The Arabs had come
down m force, but the only horsemen I had received in the
two months' interval had been one hundred mounted infantry
from Cairo, who arrived in November, and whose proficiency
as horsemen was such that six of their number parted company
with their steeds in marching half a mile to their camp.

On 3rd December, when the ball opened, I had then but a
small force to hold back an army of Mahdists flushed by their
recent victories at Khartoum, well armed, and having seven
guns ; I had also to protect a line of railway ninety miles in
length through the Batn-el-Hager, the most broken bit of
desert, save the Shukook, in all the Nile-land, and in the midst
of an Arab population entirely hostile to us. But for that
elbow or angle made by the Nile between Kosheh and Akasha,
giving literally elbow-room beliind the advanced post at the
former place and before the rail-head at the latter, the job
must have been an entirely impossible one. Cairo, even for
a reinforcement of one battalion, was eighteen days distant ;
Assouan, for the same strength, was seven daj's away. As
things turned out, the little fort at Kosheh alone saved the
situation. It kept the Arabs far enough away from the rail-
way to give the little movable column which I had scraped
together, in the elbow behind it, room to hit the separated, long-
distance attacks which the enemy could only make on that most
vulnerable tail to our military position. It was curious to me
to be obliged for two months to fight this fact with my mihtary
chiefs in Assouan and Cairo.

Neither of these excellent general ofiicers had had any
previous knowledge of Arab strategy, and I owed it altogether
to the experience, gained six months earHer, of Arab methods
in the Shukook region that my present Uttle plan of campaign
was based upon sound principles. The wilder the bird, the less
he likes going behind even a mock barrier. Kosheh was not
quite that, but it had some laths painted to look like iron.

Our Intelligence Department was at Assouan, and the Arab
leaders in Khartoum had been careful to keep that place
supplied with a thousand rumours of what they meant to do
by marching direct upon Assouan from Berber and Abu Hamad.

318 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

These reports, coming from many directions, no doubt in-
fluenced tlie decision to keep back tlie bulk of the troops in
Egypt, and hence the poMcy of ' doling out ' supports to me
on the exposed frontier. I think also it was calculated that
if the worst came, and I was cut off from my base, a reHef could
be effected in due course. Nothing in our modern wars had
sounded so well in tlie newspapers as the word ' Relief.' It
is a most valuable journalistic asset ; but at the time of which
I am writing, to be cut off from one's base in war had something
at least of the aspect of defeat, if not of disgrace ; and I was
in no mood to accept the position if it could possibly be helped.
To return to Ambigol Wells, After breaking the railway
and burnmg a lot of the sleepers on the 3rd December the
Arabs fell back agam into the desert, and we were beginning
to repair the damage when suddenly, on the 4th December,
they came on us again in force, attacked the post, and brought
their brass gun to bear upon it from a hill six hundred j^ards
distant. At half -past four o'clock news of this attack was
brought to me at x4.kasha by Lieutenant de Lisle of the mounted
infantry, who had pluckily ridden out from the beleaguered
post with two men under a very heavj'' fire. I had already
drawn from my angle fifty mounted infantry, seventy camel
corps, and fifty hussars to Akasha, and with these and two
hundred and fifty infantry we started, on the evening of the
5th December, from Akasha, bringmg also a camel gun, and a
convoy of ninety camels with water, of which de Lisle said
the garrison was running short. My telegraph wires were, of
course, cut on the east side, but I had already laid a second line
to Wady Haifa along the west shore of the Nile, and that was
intact. By midnight we had collected at Tanjour road three
hundred and fifty infantry, two hundred camel and horse men,
and one gun ; provisions, water, and ammunition on camels ;
and with these we started for Ambigol at 1 a.m. Four hours'
steady marching brought us to the khor or defile leading into
Ambigol Wells, and as day broke we were at the fort. The
Dervishes had fled. A few deserters came in, and from them
we heard the details of the attack. The Dervish force, about
nine hundred strong, of whom four hundred had rifles, under
Es Zain, an old enemy of ours on the Shukook, had left Amara
on the 29th, half of them mounted. On the evening of the

BRISK WORK 319

1st December they were east of Ambigol. The nights of
the 2nd and 3rd were spent tearing up the railway. When
dayhght came they retired into the desert. On the 4th they
attacked the fort from all sides, hauled their gun on to a high
hill five hundred yards away, and got off some dozen shots,
fired with difficulty because of the continuous volleys directed
at it from the fort. We had one man killed and one wounded :
the Arabs lost about twenty all told. I left a gun and a com-
pany of the Berks Regiment at Ambigol, and we marched back
to Akasha, where we arrived at sunset, having covered over
fifty miles in twenty-four hours, thirty miles of it on foot.

In less than a week we had the railway' repaired, and trains
running through from Haifa to Akasha again. The work of
that week never found outside record or acknowledgment, but
I owe it to the brave fellows who freely gave me their toil and
sweat to say something about it even now at this distance of
time. We had literaUj'- to do the work of one hundred men witli
less than fifty. Watched from every side, and with seven or
eight thousand Arabs in front and on our flanks for fifty miles,
we held our own from Kosheh to Ambigol, repaired every
damage as it occurred, and gave back shot for shot on both
sides of the Nile ; for the Dervishes had now put two thousand
men on the west bank, and reinforcements were daily arriving
to them from Dongola east and west. Es Zain was soon astir
again : this time he swooped round Kosheh with three thousand
men at night through the hills, and struck at Mograka and
Firket, where I had some Egj-ptian troops, I got word at
Akasha late in the evening that he was on the swoop at Firket,
and marched at sunrise next morning with five hundred men,
half West Kent and half Berkshire Regiments, mounted men,
and three guns, by the desert road to Firket ; but Es Zain and
his merry men again vanished into the hills.

I left the column at Firket and rode on to Kosheh — aU was
right there. The Arabs were gettmg more active every day.
I ran another gun and nine camel-loads of gun ammunition
into the fort, got the wires going again, reinforced Mograka
with a company of the West Kent and one gun, and rejoined
the flying column at midnight at Firket — another long day.

As more troops were now coming up the Nile from Egypt I
made my headquarters at Firket. It was a good point at which

320 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

to concentrate the force now moving slowly up from Cairo,
and meanwhile I could keep an eye on Kosheh and Mograka,
and another on the desert route to Akasha and rail-head.
Of course, the reports of alarms and excursions were incessant.
Some of them were very funny. One evening a strong patrol
of moimted mfantry returned to Firket after dark reporting
that they had found the fort of Mograka surrounded by
Dervishes, whose banners were planted across the track leading
from Firket to that post. They had engaged the Dervishes
at close range ; the fire was hotly returned ; then the Arabs
retreated, and the patrol had fallen back on Firket without
loss. That of the enemy must have been very heavy. I
marched at daybreak next morning for Mograka. There was
no trace of any enemy ; but the commandant met me in front
of his fort to report that he had been heavily attacked on the
preceding evening by a large force of Arabs, that he had
repulsed the attack with heavy loss to the assailants, and that
his garrison had not suffered. I had many doubts the evening
before about this mysterious Arab attack on Mograka, the
banners, and the rest of the patrol story ; the commandant's
account did not dispel them. What had really happened was
that the mounted infantry had volleyed at the Egjrptian soldiers
outside their fort while engaged in the dusk upon certain evening
duties and ablutions, and the Egyptians in the fort had volleyed
back at the patrol, each defeating the other, happily without
wound or graze on either side.

Ten more days of firing, scouting, marching, moving convoys
of stores from Akasha forward, sending sick and wounded down,
and passing small reinforcements up, now went on ; and at last
there seemed a prospect of bringing matters to a conclusion
before Kosheh. That little post did its work splendidly. On
16th December two companies of the Camerons made a sortie
at daybreak against the Arabs, who were daily creeping nearer
the fort, finding cover along the shore as the waters of the Nile
fell. Fourteen Dervishes were surprised and bayoneted in
the rocks.

The village of Absari, to the south of Kosheh, was found loop-
holed and garrisoned. The Arabs came out from camp at
Giimiss in large numbers, and the Camerons fell back upon the
guns of the fort, which got many shots into the Arab groups.

A RECONNAISSANCE 321

This reconnaissance was to prove of great value to us later on,
for it revealed the Arab strength and position and intentions
in case of attack along the river. Unfortunately, it was
attended with loss. Major Chalmers and Lieutenant Cameron
and four rank and file were wounded — Lieutenant Cameron
mortally. Major Hunter of the 9th Battalion was also danger-
ously wounded. A few days later I tried another reconnais-
sance to discover what the Arabs would do if we attacked them
from the broken and high ground lying a mile back from the
river. About one hundred mounted men were to circle round
behind the hills from Mograka and endeavour to approach
Ginniss from the east. It was intensely interesting to watch
the effect this movement had upon the Dervish camps for three
miles south of Kosheh. First I saw an Arab rushing madly
out of the broken ground towards Ginniss ; he had evidently
caught sight of the cavalry movement in the hills, and was
racing to give the alarm. I stood with watch in hand noting
the exact time taken. First fifty mounted men rode out at
full gallop from the shore near Ginniss ; then band after band
of Dervishes passed streaming into the khors leading up to
the higher ridges. Wliat I wanted to find out was the exact
time it would take the Arabs to gain a high dominating ridge
which rose round the tangle of broken ground about three or
four miles from Kosheh, and one or two from Ginniss. I got
the time to a second : twenty minutes after the Arab vidette
had given the first alarm I saw the heads and spears of many
Dervishes on the skyline of the high ridge. Another body of
mounted men, followed by footmen, moved obliquely as
though to intercept our men, who were not visible to us, but
whose general line of movement through the hills we could tell
by the gallopings and racings of the Arabs.

Colonel Barrow's orders were not to commit the reconnais-
sance to close quarters, but to fall back on Mograka, passing
the front of Kosheh, and retiring fighting. I sent out two
companies of Camerons to threaten the Dervish flank. The
Arab mounted men, followed by a couple of hundred of their
foot, came on weU. Barrow fell back across the front face
of the fort. A wide khor opened into the hills directly in
front of the fort, and across this our men passed, closely
followed by the Arabs. One chief in particular pressed the

X

322 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

pursuit very closely. He was shot near the khor. His horse
galloped among our cavalry and was taken. This man proved
to be the celebrated Kordofan Emir, Osman el Azreck, the best
fighting leader in the Dervish army. The firing ceased sud-
denly, and presently we saw a party of Dervishes passing back
over the khor, bearing the body of El Azreck on their shoulders.

A few days later the last of the reinforcements from Cairo
reached Firket, and with them came Sir Frederick Stevenson,
the commander-in-chief. General Grenfell, and large staffs. I
had everything ready for them — food, ammunition, and plan
of attack upon the Arabs at Ginniss. The fort at Kosheh had
done its work. We were all tired of the long-drawn-out task
which the delays and the lack of transport on the Nile had
imposed upon us. For thirtj'' days our little garrison in the
angle had held some eight thousand Arabs, and preserved the
railway to Wady Haifa.

On the 29th December a force of four thousand men was
concentrated in the palm groves between Kosheh and Mograka,
ready to move against the Arabs next morning. I suppose I
ought to have been satisfied, but somehow I wasn't. As old
people may live too long for younger men, so yoimger men
may do too weU for older people. That, at least, was what
I thought ; but it doesn't matter now. One most unlooked-
for message of indirect approval of our work came to me about
Christmas Day, when I bivouacked on the platform of an old
sakeyeh wheel at Firket. It was a letter from our military
attache at Berlin telling of an interview he had just had with
the great Von Moltke, who sent for him to discuss the situation
on the Nile to the south of Wady Haifa.

' I do not see how it will be possible for your small force at and
south of Wady Haifa to prevent the Arabs enveloping your positions,
completely destroying the railway, and coming in force to Wady
Haifa. Your line is far too long and your force much too small.'

General Stevenson held a meeting of officers that day near
Mograka, and I was asked to state my idea of the next day's
movements. I gave it, based altogether upon the Arab moves
on the 22nd. If my brigade started from Kosheh one hour and
a half before daybreak, I thought that it would be possible to
gain the high ridge east of Ginniss at or near dawn. If that

GINNISS— THE PRELIMINARIES 323

point was reached before the Arabs got to it from Ginniss, we
held them in the hoUow of our hands ; if not, they had every
chance of holding us. The ground between us and the ridge
was extremely broken and intersected with sudden ravines,
but I thought I could take my three battalions there before
daylight revealed our march to the Dervishes. I was told to
do as I liked.

That evening I went out to the desert clear of Kosheh, and
put two biggish stones to mark the front of an infantry battalion
standing in quarter column. Thirty or forty yards behind
the left-hand one of the two stones I placed a third and fourth
stone, laid very carefully in a line bearing over the centre of
the saw-back ridge, and full on the flat top of Gebel Abri,
a mountain about eight miles distant to the south. I said
nothing to anybody, but ordered my three battalions and six
camel guns to parade next morning. When night had quite
fallen I went out to my stones again, and saw that the top
of G«bel Abri was quite discernible over the centre of the saw-
back ridge in the desert, east of Ginniss.

Before dawn I ' dressed ' the Berkshire Battalion in
quarter column squarely upon these stones. Two battalions,
the West Kent and Durhams, fell in with their leadmg com-
panies in line, on the rear company of the Berks, one to right
and the other to left of that battahon. This formation
gave three sides of a hollow square. Into that hollow I put
the six Egyptian camel guns, ambulance stretchers, spare
ammunition, water camels, etc., and I closed the rear face of
the hollow with a scratch battalion of six companies, made up
of two companies from the three battalions. This compact
force was led by a sergeant of the Berks Regiment. On the
left of the leading company, and behind this sergeant, I mj^self
rode, to see that he led straight upon Gebel Abri. When
everything was ready it was fifteen minutes to five ; no moon ;
a misty, grey gloom was over the desert, but the dark top of
Gebel Abri showed distinctly above the horizon nearly due
south. I sent back to the general, who, with his second brigade
of British and Egyptian troops, was about six liundred yards
in rear, that I was quite ready to advance. A message was
returned asking me to wait, as the second brigade was not yet
ready ; but as I had very closely timed the march to be done

324 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

with the hour of dawn, I sent back again to say that it was
imperatively necessary that my brigade should start at 5 a.m. ;
and when that hour came, we moved forward. The line of
march laid on Gebel Abri soon began to ascend from the lower
levels near the river into the rocky ridges lying south of Ginniss
and Amara. We were passing obliquely along the flank posi-
tions held by the Dervishes on the river south of Kosheh,
diverging farther awaj^ from the Nile as we proceeded. We
could see the enemy's fires in the palm groves and scattered
mud houses by the shore, but beyond the barking of dogs
to the right as we proceeded there was nothing as yet to indi-
cate that the Arabs were aware of our movements. For quite
an hour the march went on through very rough and broken
ground. At times a ravine or khor of unusual steepness had
to be crossed, in passing which the guiding cone of Gebel Abri
disappeared from view ; but in these cases I took a star in the
southern heavens in the line of the hill-top, and as we ascended
on an opposite side of the ravine Gebel Abri was again in sight.
After about an hour's marching Hght began to show in the
east, and one was able to see something of the surrounding
desert, and the line of palms and houses along the river to our
right. We were now abreast of Ginniss, about three-quarters
of a mile from it. In our front, five or six hundred yards
ahead, the razor-back ridge, to gam which was the entire object
of the movement, was becoming more plainly visible in the
increasing light. So far no shot, sound, or sign of movement
had come from the Arabs. During the next quarter of a mile
I made the battahons on the right and left of the Berkshires
incline outwards from that battahon, which still kept its even
pace to the front. When the flank battahons reached deploy-
ing distance they resumed the old direction again. The
brigade was then in line of battalion columns at deploying
distance, the guns, camels, etc., being in rear of the centre
and guiding battahon, and behind them came the reserve
battahon. The hght grew rapidly, and by the time we reached
the foot of the razor-back all the surrounding black and grey
rocks and ravines were fully visible. Still no enemy showed
anywhere, and the silence was still unbroken except by our
footsteps on the rocky surface. I rode on to the top of the
centre of the razor-back.

THE ACTION OF GINNISS 325

There the scene changed in an instant. The whole desert
at the farther side of the ridge was outlaid before us : the long
slopes leading down to the wide river, which stretched west-
ward, dotted with the dark isles of the Amara rapids ; the
endless Libyan desert at the farther side ; the line of scattered
palm groves and houses on the nearer shore, from which many
groups of Arab horsemen and foot spearmen were streaming
into the rocks and khors that lay immediately in our front.

For a moment I thought that we had won the race for the
ridge by a mile ; but it was not so — we had only won it by a
few hundred yards ; for as soon as some more figures of our
people showed over the top, fire opened along a front of eight
hundred or a thousand yards from numerous concealed enemies,
some of whom were within two hundred paces of the height
on which we stood. These riflemen were the leading scouts
of the advancing Arab army, making for the ridge. I ordered
the three battalions to line the ridge, for the sun was now rising
at our backs, making things very visible to people on the
lower ground to the west. The lower khors in our front were
quickly filling with Arabs from the palm groves. The Berk-
shires got first into position on the crest, and while the two
flank battalions were coming up I had time to look round and
see where our supporting brigade was.

It was a long way behind, quite two miles, and it appeared
to be halted, facing the village of Absari. The regiment of
cavalry, which had orders to move on the left of my brigade,
well out in the desert, was also visible about a mile to the south-
east. It was quite evident that in a few minutes more I should
have the entire Arab force on this bank of the river in our
immediate front. The whole scene, as the sun came up,
presented a very striking spectacle. For a few minutes the
fire in our front went on, and the bullets came flying across the
top of the ridge fast and thick, so far without reply. But it was
now our turn to begin. The Berkshires opened the baU, and a
hail of bullets soon swept the edges of the ravines in our front.
The Durhams next took up the fire, and the West Kent followed,
but before the infantry were all in line I called up the Egyptian
camel Kxupp battery under Colonel Woodhouse. Above the
edges of a khor about a thousand yards in our front a large
force of Arabs was gathering : we could see spear heads and

326 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

banners showing. One flag, particularly noticeable by its wide
folds, was carried by a man on horseback. Colonel Woodhouse
laid his first gun on this figure with aim so good that man,
horse, and flag disappeared from sight almost simultaneously
with the report of the Httle gun. For a quarter of an hour
the fire was hammer and tongs on both sides. When the
Berkshires first reached the hill crest they were met by so
strong a sweep of bullets that three or four men fell at once.
I therefore ordered the battalion to lie down on the inner slope
and fire over the ridge. The other battalions did the same
as they came up to the crest, and in a few moments a hail of
bullets was sweeping down the outer slopes and across the
khors and ravines, into which the spearmen and their leaders
were now rapidly gathering from the lower ground. Our
officers, mounted and on foot, did not dismount nor take cover,
for at that date it had not become the order or the habit to
do so.

One could now judge what the result would have been to us
had the Arabs got possession of this ridge before us — and we
had only saved it by a few minutes. It had been neck and
neck. If Gebel Abri had not been where it was, I don't think
it could have been done. Finding that they could not face a
front attack upon the ridge, the spearmen now began to move
towards our left, keeping within the shelter of several khors,
whose existence we could only tell by the spear heads and
banners showing at intervals above the edges. To check this
movement to the flank I sent the Egyptian camel corps out
beyond the left of our line, and moved the reserve battalion
to reinforce that flank.

I have already mentioned the name of Said Redwan of
Kordofan, a lieutenant in the camel corps. No bolder or finer
man ever carried sword than that officer. He had now dis-
mounted his men, tied down the camels, and the men were
firing away down the khors in their front. Suddenly a group
of Dervishes rushed from some rocks nearer to our line and
began stabbing the camels. We could not fire at them, because
the men of the camel corps were in the line of fire just beyond
their camels. I shouted to the camel-men to clear off to the
left and leave us a clear field of fire ; they did so, all except
Said, who, seeing the Dervishes hacking at his camels, charged

CT.OSE OF THE BATTLE 327

singly into their midst, and began to hew and hack at them
right and left. It was a strange sight, such a one as must
have been frequently seen in Crusader times ; and to make it
still more of mediaeval fashion, the Dervish swords were of
the old straight, double-edged blade and two-handed type,
precisely such as Sir Walter Scott's Nubian soldiers in the
Talisman might have carried. On the present occasion the
Dervish swords had the best of it, and Said Redwan got cut
in several places, and went down among his camels ; but this
temporary fall saved his life, for his assailants were picked off
by our men once the ground was clear. A few other fanatics
now appeared from the rocks, hopping in the strangest fashion
as they made straight for our men. One or two of them got
so close to the line before they fell that one could see every
feature of their faces distorted with the delirium of fanatical
enthusiasm, the lips moving in prayer, the eyes rolling, their
swords raised in both hands, twirling in a ceaseless circle above
their heads. I could not discern any sign of rage in the ex-
pression of their faces ; it seemed to be the ecstasy of self-
martyrdom. The battle was soon over ; we had had it all
to ourselves.

I would now change front to the right and move down the
slopes upon the Arab camps in and behind Ginniss. So,
sending word to the generals and the Second Brigade, who were
still more than a mile behind us, and sending an officer also to
inform the cavalry on our left, another mile to the east, that I
was about to move upon the river, I wheeled the line the
eighth of a circle on its right, and, picking up our wounded
men, began our march on Ginniss. I added to my message
to the colonel of the cavalry that, so far as I could see, the
Arabs were retreating along the Nile shore towards Atab ; that
he should conform to my movement, and thus place his regi-
ment upon the Une of the retreating enemy. Then we went
straight for Ginniss. In half an hour we were there. The
Arabs had fled along the palm patches and river shore beyond
Atab, leaving two guns, fourteen standards, some wounded,
and about two thousand medgideah dollars in our hands. The
cavalry missed their chance. Although they were full on the
flank of the retreating Dervishes, their commanding officer
drew up his men at Atab and began firing at the fugitives.

328 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Twenty minutes after we reached Ginniss, the Second Brigade
came up, with the generals and their respective staffs. I loaded
two Dervish donkeys with the Arab standards, took them to
the generals, and presented them. That was the end of the
battle of Ginniss. We lost only one officer killed — Lieutenant
Soltau ot the Berkshire Regiment. He was shot through the
head a minute or two after we gained the razor-back ridge.
He was a splendid specimen of youthful manhood as he stood
behind the men of his company, who were lying against the
top of the ridge ; nor did he look one whit less splendid when,
a moment later, he lay stretched on his back on the rocky
desert with his sword still held firm in his hand. We buried
him in the desert outside Ginniss. A touching thmg happened
at that simple funeral. Soltau had a pet dog, which he took
with him wherever he went. It was a tiny thing, of the toy
spaniel type, but, smaU as that animal was, it had the biggest
heart of any dog I had ever seen. This was what happened.
The body of the dead officer was carried on a stretcher behind
the Berkshire Regiment as we marched from the ridge, and
the stretcher, covered by a Union Jack, was put in a tent
for a couple of hours while a grave was being dug in the desert.
When all was ready, we followed the body to its last rest.
The stretcher was laid on the ground a few feet from the grave,
and the Union Jack Hfted. The body, still in uniform, was
then raised by four men and lowered into the grave ; but,
cowering on one side of the blood-stained stretcher, in smaller
shape than ever before, was the tiny dog. I have never
forgotten the way in which that black atom dragged itself,
crouching, from the stretcher along the few feet of sand to
the edge of the pit, and lay there with its head hanging
down into the grave. When some one Hfted it away, it hung
like a Httle dead thing, a sight sufficient to make strong men
turn aside.

CHAPTER XIX

Back to Wady Haifa. Letters. Sickness among the troops. Leaving the
Soudan. Assouan. Home on sick leave. Half-pay in Brittany. K.C.B.

The failure of the cavalry in pursuit, following the fight at
Ginniss, imposed extra work upon the infantry brigade. We
marched to Amara in the afternoon, and bivouacked in a palm-
grove by the river. In the middle of the night the sound of
heavy firing came from the direction of Kosheh, and was con-
tinued at short intervals until daybreak. Of course I could not
suppose that it arose from any real Dervish attack, and could
only attribute it to one of those night alarms or panics of which
the Zulu War of 1879 had given so many examples. The
volleys of musketry were undoubtedly fired by trained troops ;
but, as the men of my two battalions had had a very heavy
day's work, I did not disturb their bivouac.

A few minutes later, a mounted officer appeared from the
cavalry commander, who was camped with his regiment at
Atab, two miles nearer Kosheh. I had left one infantry
battalion at the same place the previous evenmg. The officer
brought an urgent demand for assistance : the firing, he said,
proceeded from Kosheh, four miles farther to the rear, I sent
back answer that it was quite impossible that there could be
any valid reason for this musketry outbreak at Kosheh ; that
the colonel should send an officer's patrol there to discover
what the firing meant. An hour or two later the same officer,
this time on a camel, appeared ; and again I had to get up from
my blankets. It was the same appUcation for assistance
repeated. Kosheh was firing volleys at mtervals. This time
I felt annoyed ; but the humour of the situation was too much
for other feelings, so I got some writing materials, and wrote
to the officer commanding cavalry : —

' There can be no cause at Kosheh for this firing. A few stragglers
may still be near that place. Your own position at Atab is abso-

329

330 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

lutely secure. You have an infantry battalion immediately on your
right, two other infantry battaUons are on your left at Ginniss ;
two batteries of artillery, two battalions of the Egyptian army,
and the whole of the headquarter staffs are also there ; while there
is an unfordable river behind you and an impassable desert in your
front. You should let your men lie down and rest.'

I was not disturbed again, and shortly after daybreak news
came that the firing had been caused by the presence of a few
Dervishes in a mud hut near Kosheh, which the Second Brigade
was supposed to have captured the previous morning, after a
heavy bombardment, when they first advanced from Kosheh.
The volleys were fired by an Egyptian battalion to prevent
these six Dervishes getting out ! Meanwhile the Dervishes
had fled south as fast as Arab legs could go. All their Nuggers
had hoisted sail, and were already past the bend of the Nile at
Sakt-el-Abd. I got a report from the cavalry commander
after dark on the 31st that they had reconnoitred to Quake,
which was found deserted ; that the Arab Nuggers, with arms,
wounded, etc., on board, were reported to be thirty miles south
of Quake, and that he had not deemed it advisable to pursue
them. I knew that part of the Nile well, for I had been over
it frequently a year earlier. The currents ran swift in many
places. There had been little wind that day, and I believed
it was still possible, notwithstanding lost opportunities, to
capture some, if not all, of the Dervish fleet.

Accordingly, at daylight on New Year's Day, having been
supplied with two days' rations, a couple of hundred mounted
men, horses, and camels, under Major Smith-Dorrien of the
Egyptian army, started from Abri, the old Lotus, stem-wheeler,
steaming up-stream with them.

I rode from Abri to the south, through Mahass and Sukkote.
At Loarda I found the cavalry halted, and the Lotus beached,
repairing damage from a sunken rock. At 2 p.m. she was
under weigh again : at sunset I came up with the cavalry,
halted near Kurtingo. One Nugger had a Iready been captured,
and others were only ten miles ahead. There was little wind :
the Arabs were tracking. The capture of the boats was now
assured. I sent the cavalry on to Kosheh. When night fell I
found myself, with a single Egyptian orderly, no food, forage,
or blankets, my little Arab pony dead-tired, at a spot some miles

MESSAGE FROM THE LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 331

to the south of Eroe, where dwelt Ab-der-Rahman, the leadmg
Arab sheikh in Sukkote. I had known this man before ; of
course, he had played fast and loose with us, as he was bound
to do, living between the upper and the lower mill-stones on the
frontier ; but the sun was now on our side of the palm-trees,
and Ab-der-Rahman professed warm friendship for us. I sent
the orderly to ask a night's hospitality from this sheikh.

Ab-der-Rahman was profuse in his hospitaUty. His guest-
house was at my service, and I had good food and excellent
tea in a silver teapot for my supper. The Dervishes had passed
his house on the 30th at one o'clock in full flight for Dongola.
There were many wounded put into Nuggers, some of the
leadmg Emirs being among them.

Next morning (the 2nd) I was able to report the capture
of nine Nuggers, arms, clothing, and grain. I got back to
Quake on the 3rd, remained there until all the captured boats
arrived, and then marched to Kosheh. Here I received the
following message from the lieutenant-general commanding : —

' The Lieu tenant-General desires to express to Br. -General
Butler the satisfaction with which he has read the report of his
proceeding since the action of the 30th ulto., and of his activity
and energy in following up the enemy, which has resulted in the
important capture of nine laden Nuggers, which it is believed are
the remainder of the enemy's river transport north of Kaibar.
The Lieutenant-General wishes General Butler to convey to Major
Smith-Dorrien, Major Lloyd, and Captain Page of the Lotus the
expression of his satisfaction at the able and successful manner in
which they have carried out his orders, as well as to Sergeant
Sullivan, C. and T. Corps, for the efficient manner in which,
under circumstances of some difficulty, he forwarded supplies to
the moimted troops in advance. The Lieutenant-General has
forwarded General Butler's report to the Secretary of State for
War.'

I got back to Wady Haifa in mid-January, and was glad to
get a rest. It had been two months of continuous going. I
must pass over the next couple of months, and come to the
month of March.

The best thing about war is that it opens eyes in a mental
sense, even as it closes them in a bodily one. It was now clear,
even to the Enghsh official in Cairo, that we had not a friend

332 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

among the indigenous peoples of the Nile from Khartoum to
the sea. The Greek, the Syrian, the outlander generally, the
Jewish ' Shrofi/ the semi-Christian inhabitants might wish
to see us in a land which was no more theirs than it was ours,
but the Mohammedan, whether Arab rover or Egyptian vil-
lager, regarded us as the children of sin and the accursed of
God. The sole thing they Hked about us was what the inhabi-
tants of Cj^prus used to call the ' English livre sterling.' It was
this internal weakness in our position on the Nile, no matter
what point we might choose for our frontier, that was the
real difficulty. It resembled a bad sea-waU built to keep the
tides in check, liable always to have the sea breaking through.

As soon as the little campaign at Kosheh was over, the
generals and their staffs departed for Cairo, where the winter
season was at its height. Four British battalions were now left
in my command, when there was no enemy in mj'' front. Three
months earher, with ten thousand active enemies before me,
I had to face the situation with a single battalion, slowly rein-
forced by a second one. But although I had no enemy in
front, I had a very pressing and active one in my midst —
sickness. I knew the Nile pretty well by this time. Keep the
men moving, give them something to prevent their minds
from rusting, and you get on fairly weU in these Nubian deserts.
Stop, form camps, remove the interests of active life, and
immediately fevers in their worst form would show, increasing
with the rising temperature of the summer months, until they
decimated the ranks and sapped the strength of entire
battahons. The usual drift of indecision was apparently now
setting in in London.

A reoccupation of Dongola after Ginniss would have been a
fortnight's work, but, in the then state of affairs in the Soudan
and in Egypt, that occupation would have made our position
only more costly, more difficult, and more insecure. Our
soldiers would only have died in Dongola, when the hot weather
came, instead of in Wady Haifa or at Assouan. For English
troops and English gold this Soudan was only a bag without a
bottom.

These, however, were the larger and more general aspects
of the situation I had now to deal with. The particular thing
in front of me was the rapid approach of the hot season, and

WARNING WORDS 333

the certainty, to my mind, of having in a few weeks to deal
with a great outbreak of sickness among the three thousand
troops at and south of Wady Haifa. At this distance of time
I should not have written the word ' certainty,' if I had not
had before me now some of the least among the warning "words
I then sent hy telegraph and letter to my official superiors
in Cairo and London. They may perhaps be of use to men
in the future who are in positions similar to mine then. As
earl}^ as 12th Februar}^ I telegraphed the general in Assouan : —

' We are now approaching a very trying season for English
troops : we are occupying camping grounds which have been much
fouled by previous occupation, and from which it is impossible to
change. Our sick-list is exceptionally high, nearly ten per cent,
being in hospital ; our barrack equipment is nil. We have neither
bedsteads, mattresses, tables, nor forms. Three out of my four
battalions are in tents, and to build huts for men will be a work
of much time, since the district is almost destitute of timber and
straw for roofs. I have now inspected the four battalions in this
command in their new dispositions, and I beg the favour of the
transmission of this telegram to Cairo, and if necessary to England,
so that the fullest effort may be made, while there is time, for the
provision of the requisites which will make life endurable during
the hot season. There have been fourteen deaths in the last four
weeks, which are the coolest and healthiest in the year.'

These urgent messages only brought fresh queries, and
demands for further reports. I had to show cause. I did so.

' I stated in my No. 199 that Kosheh hospital was being adminis-
tered from Assouan, and hence there was delay in receiving medi-
cines, which was detrimental to the sick. Now for facts. I found
many men (there) lying on the ground, and the reason given by
medical officer was that he could not get a decision from Assouan
as to the number of beds he was to keep up. He also said that he
had asked Assouan on the 18th January for important medicines,
but had not yet received them on the 7th February. Not a day
passes that I do not find proof of the error of trying to administer
these distant stations from Assouan instead of from the hospital
here. I represented this months ago. All I asked was that the
Medical Department should have the same measure of local adminis-
tration given to it as was accorded to the Ordnance and Commis-
sariat. I have no personal interest in the matter. I strive to do
the best for the good of those under my command. I can point

334 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

through five months to a long series of recommendations and pro-
posals, many of which, opposed at first, are now admitted to have
been right. Camerons and Durhams have over ten per cent. sick.
Staffords and Berks are more healthy ; but the sick-rate is increasing,
not diminishing.'

On 19th February I wired : —

' I have again most urgently to call attention to the state of the
sick in this command. We have now two hundred and eight sick
here. When I had only one battalion in brigade the evacuation
of the sick down the river was continuous ; now, with a heavy sick-
roll in four battalions, none are sent away, and more than two
hundred sick men are kept crowded in narrow spaces, amid the
noises of a camp ; even the woimded of Ginniss are kept here, losing
spirits daily amid the sad surroundings of numerous sick people.
Two deaths yesterday. The hospital is so overcrowded that even
'post mortem dissections were carried on in sight of the sick men.
While this state of things has been going on, the principal medical
officer is content to sit afar off (at Assouan) writing verbose objec-
tions to a better system, and opposing my repeated protests. If we
had a single newspaper correspondent here, the system would not
last a day.'

It has been my misfortune in life to see a few things a long
way off, and to make some enemies by that foresight. This
was one of these occasions. AU I got in reply was a demand to
put my opinions and requirements into the usual official form
of a letter, and to submit it for the consideration of my
superiors. As we were already on the threshold of the hot
season, this altogether unnecessary delay made me feel angry,
but I sat down at once and wrote : —

'5th March 1886.

' Sm, — On many occasions during the past month I have put
forward by telegraph the requirements of the troops under my
conmiand for the ensuing summer, as regards hutting, fuller pro-
vision of barrack equipment, protection from the sun, means of
supplying ice, solar hats, fuel (for boiling water), etc., etc. These
demands were made in such ample form, and with such full recogni-
tion of the necessities of the Soudan summer, that a further report
upon them must, so far as the requirements are concerned, take the
form of recapitulation and of a progress report so far as it relates
to the work already accomplished.

STATE OF THE SICK 335

* As the urgency of various matters involved appeared to me to
override all other considerations, I deviated from the instructions
contained in the adjutant-general's minute of the 25th January,
which directed me to cause projects and estimates to be prepared.
As I had had but too ample an experience, in eighteen months'
service on the upper Nile, of the delays which are inseparable from
ihe conditions of the transport service on the river, I took immedi-
ate st«ps to construct huts at Kosheh, Akasha, and Wady Haifa,
and in order to induce rapid building, I fixed the scale of remunera-
tion for troops and natives at so much per hut, if completed in a
given time.

' This plan has resulted in the huts of the Durham Battalion at
Kosheh being raised to an average elevation of nine feet in only a
fortnight's labour, a result which presents a striking contrast to
the erection of huts last year at Assouan, Korosko, and Haifa, at
some of which places the troops were not hutted until the hot
season was near its close.'

After treating in succession all the subjects already raised
in my telegrams, and giving a list of our most pressing wants —
' three thousand bedsteads and paillasses, tables, forms, four
thousand sun hats, burning glasses for boiling water, with proper
kettles to suit them, similar to those used by the French troops
in the Sahara ' — I pointed out that as we were at that moment
sending fuel by rail to Akasha, thence by boat to Dal, thence
by camels to Sarkamotto, and finally by boat to Kosheh, at
great cost and labour, these glasses would soon repay their
cost. I alluded too to the sense of isolation which was felt by
the soldiers of the brigade, who now regarded themselves as
being ' almost beyond the outside edge of the Empire. They
look in vain for any reference to them in the home newspapers,
and the very existence of this distant frontier appears to be
lost sight of at home.' No doubt there were reasons, political
or other, for this state of seclusion, but soldiers could not
be expected to imderstand these causes ; and the sense of being
forgotten or ignored, when men are engaged in very arduous
work under trjing conditions of climate upon a distant and
exposed frontier, is not conducive to their health or \ con-
tentment. I ended thus : —

' In conclusion, I would desire to impress upon the authorities
the gravity of the sense which I entertained of the medical and

336 SIR WILLI